removal

Put TRNC back. Have you ever been there? They have their own government and they are all turkish; totally seperated from Greek Cyprus. Abkhzia & Chechnya may not be recognized by anyone but TRNC is recognized by an important country of the region: Turkey. EU cannot recognize it because Greece doent want them to do so. --JohnEmerald 16:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

There's no such thing as "Greek Cyprus", there's only the Republic of Cyprus - a multiethnic state, recognized by everyone save Turkey, with two official languages: Greek and Turkish. Since the Turkish invasion and the setting up of the puppet regime in the north, propaganda is emanating from Turkish affiliated publications that the north is Turkish and the "southern state" is Greek. The UN still considers the "TRNC" legally invalid in its resolutions - Greece has nothing to do with this.--Tekleni 07:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Try to make the encyclopedia consistent. In the current case, this means that the stable version should be kept and not reverted. It has been in place and in use for a long long time. Wikipedia has some fairly serious guidelines about changes templates. It should be done with care. - Pernambuco 13:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

TRNC is not a puppet country. 2 years ago when Cyprus was accepted in EU, there was a referandum in which Turkish cypriots of TRNC voted in the favor of merging of two regions. But Greek side voted NO: they didn't want to be merged with turkish folk. Turkey's government and people were very dissappointed because of the gratitude of TRNC folk; TRNC just wanted to be no more TRNC and wanted to be prosperous EU citizens: they were rejected. They just neverminded the blood flown 30 years ago; just didnt remembered the minor genocide against their grandparents by Greek army 30 years ago. So is there really a government or a puppet one. Decision is yours --JohnEmerald 17:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Absolute nonsense. The Annan Plan for Cyprus was rejected by GCs because of its unfair treatment of the Greek community (the whole world knows that GCs and TCs alike favor reunification - the problem is on what terms). Turks make up an impressive 18% of the total population of Cyprus and thus are an ethnic minority (the puppet regime already claims much more territory than that). Claims for equal representation in the administration (50/50) are absolutely ludicrous. State officials should be democratically elected, and all citizens who have reached the age of majority should be eligible to stand. Also, that plan made provisions for the Turkish occupation force to remain on the island, and you're wondering why they opposed it and why the Turks accepted it?! Finally, as far as this alleged "genocide" is concerned, I'll just say this: it should be entered in the Guinness World Records as the only "genocide" in world history where the "perpetrators" suffered more dead than the "victims" (makes you wonder who committed genocide on whom). --Tekleni 17:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

None of this matters. Regardless of what you agree on, or don't agree on, this is not the place. This is only a template. It can take information from other lists. For consistency, it should include what is on these lists and it should exclude what is not on these lists. As simple as that. If anyone has a problem with the inclusion of a certain state or territorial entity, then go to List of countries and click "Discussion" and bring up the issue there. Not here. - Pernambuco 23:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Please don't induce the reader in error..that article states something like: list of countries recognized and not recognized. You want to push here a POV even if this template does not specifically refers to unrecognized countries from Europe. You should create another template of unrecognized european states.--Wissahickon Creektalk 18:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

This is not a POV-pushing issue. We just have to be consistent with List of Countries and with List of sovereign states. The editors over there have already done all the work. When they add a new entity, so do we. When they remove one, so do we. Simple as that. - Pernambuco 22:25, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The Republic of Irelands's official name is actually The Republic of Ireland, as the article says. — Saxifrage✎ 17:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

does it? The state's official name is Ireland -- tascwordsdeeds 23:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

My mistake. The lead of the article is confusing unless closely read. — Saxifrage✎ 00:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Then you must write "Kingdom of Spain","Kingdom of Denmark", "Federal republic of Germany" etc. instead of short names.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnEmerald (talk • contribs)

I'm confused. What are you disagreeing with? I mistread the Republic of Ireland article, that's all. I've withdrawn my point because I was wrong. — Saxifrage✎ 02:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

France

I see that Spain and Portugal have notes that they are partly outside of Europe, presumably due to their integral overseas territories. I note too that Greenland (part of Denmark) is noted separately. However, I don't see any mention of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon or other integral-to-France overseas territories, and France doesn't have a note like Portugal or Spain. Should this be fixed, or is it not broken somehow that I'm not seeing? — Saxifrage✎ 04:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like something that may need addressing... Regards, David Kernow(talk) 14:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and put the footnote on France. If I'm premature and there's good reason not to, people are free to revert and let me know why. — Saxifrage✎ 00:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

You are right, France has Departements d'Outre Mer (DOM, Oversea Departments) that are integral part of France, and Territoires d'Outre Mer (TOM), which are not. --84.144.232.82 16:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

This and similar templates' names

Does anyone else feel the name "Europe" is insufficiently descriptive for this template (or "Asia" for {{Asia}}, "Africa" for {{Africa}}, etc)...? When seen within code, it doesn't indicate what information about Europe is that the template contains.

Hence I suggest this and similar templates' names are prefixed "Countries of". This is also the title used within the template itself. {{Countries of Europe}}, {{Countries of Asia}} etc are far more helpful names. Regards, David Kernow(talk) 14:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

oppose useless change, required a lot of work. why do you need to care about code at all? can't you use preview? is there any new countries to care about code? I think you're trying to multiply entities without need. -- tascwordsdeeds 14:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Not a lot of work is required: bots, redirects, AWB, ...

I care about code because I'm thinking of people who aren't necessarily computer experts or don't recall the contents of every template they see.

I'm also imagining the inconvenience of resorting to a preview when a couple of words prefixed to a name could suffice.

How is the appearance or demise of countries relevant to the concerns I've outlined...?

Not amount of work is important, but the fact that it's useless. Those who don't know what template is about can press preview button, but this template does not require any editing! yeah, it's a good idea to keep ip vandals out. What you talking about? what appearance/demise? Occam's razor! just find yourself a better thing to do. -- tascwordsdeeds 15:13, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't understand how any of the above addresses the concerns I've raised. Hopefully it might be more meaningful to anyone else reading this thread. Thanks anyway for trying to share your opinion. Regards, David(talk) 15:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be a concern. just waste of time on talk pages. -- tascwordsdeeds 15:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to make sure I'm not misuderstanding you: Does your response immediately above mean you regard anything you don't think is a concern to be a waste of time...? David(talk) 22:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Templates get renamed all the time and it's not a lot of work. Neither is using a more descriptive name useless. Besides, the old name will continue to work just fine until all uses are replaced. — Saxifrage✎ 15:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

well it's not needed in the first place! -- tascwordsdeeds 15:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is your opinion, tasc. Now, how do you accommodate those of your fellow contributors...? David Kernow(talk) 22:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

So far i see only your opinion, and none of my fellow contributors. -- tascwordsdeeds 22:39, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I am right here.

If your reason to not do it is "it's too hard", you're very welcome to get out of the way and let someone else do the work. That you don't think it's needed isn't reason to not do it. You must give a reason to not do it in order to have a position worth considering. — Saxifrage✎ 22:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

If your reason to do it is "it's not too hard", you're very welcome to get out of the way and let someone else don't do the work. That you do think it's needed isn't reason to do it. You must give a reason to do it in order to have a position worth considering. -- tascwordsdeeds 22:48, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

What happens if it (or they) are reason/s you don't like, tasc? Ignore? Revert? David Kernow(talk) 22:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Reasons have been given; and thank-you, I am willing to get out of the way and let someone else don't do the work, which is the definition of "doing it myself". Now, I realise that that's not what you're saying, but please be mature about this—copycatting me isn't very constructive. Now, do you have a reason for opposing this change on its merits instead? — Saxifrage✎ 23:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

(resetting indentation)
Template names that describe the template is a good thing. There's no reason not to, and a number of people seem to prefer the "Countries of X" naming scheme. That's enough reason to do it. — Saxifrage✎ 00:38, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

What you trying to convince me? that devil always has work for idle hands to do? of course, there is always something to change, and there is always disputes to solve. just imagine how many new claims for removal of non-sovereign countries will appear after change of the template's name. -- tascwordsdeeds 07:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe there'd be a significant increase in such claims; neither, I suspect, would most editors. My experience here suggests that anyone determined to make such changes won't be dissuaded by the name of the template/article/etc. But what concerns me more is that your objection doesn't assume good faith. David Kernow(talk) 10:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Support, as per David Kernow. I think the template should be renamed, and so should the templates for other continents. At the moment, it has potential to be confused with {{Europefooter}}. I understand there are a lot of pages transcluding it but as long as a bot/AWB can do it, it can be done easily. The old name would redirect to the new name whilst the country pages referencing it are updated so it will always be working properly. There shouldn't be too much visual impact since this kind of issue only affects the internal wiki-code. Tra(Talk) 23:39, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Is that supposed to be an answer? -- tascwordsdeeds 23:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course not. You didn't ask me the question and I didn't answer it. I am asking you to not try to control this page as if you owned it. Policy forbids it. — Saxifrage✎ 00:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I did ask you question, but you aparently prefer to ignore it. well, that's your right. -- tascwordsdeeds 00:21, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I am not aware of this question you asked of me right here. If you mean you asked me a question elsewhere in this page, then please assume I will answer it there. — Saxifrage✎ 00:38, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Europe and the EU are, and have often been, confused with each other. The issue does not just apply to this template. As for who would get confused, that would be anyone who is writing an article and wants a list of countries in Europe at the bottom, or is looking to see which template refers to the list of countries, or who is trying to find the template to edit the list of countries etc. Tra(Talk) 00:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The issue does not just apply to this template. That's an interesting observation. why is that? You cannot just write an article and want template. It's a navigational template. It should be included in only in a limited number of relevant articles! not just in any article editor want it to be included. And guess what? all such articles have been written, and template - included! no need to write any more article! no need to broke previous convention on template name. No need to start new disputes regarding inclusion other terriotories or unrecognized states in contries of x template. -- tascwordsdeeds 07:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Support. Since templates are usually made by different people and at different times, they often have inconsistent names. But that's no excuse to leave them that way. The name doesn't really matter anyway. --tjstrfNow on editor review! 00:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Support In my opinion, since the navigational box is titled Countries of Europe, it is logical that the template should be similarly named. If I were to write an article about a fictional European country and decided to put in the Europe Template on a whim, I might expect to get some general statistics on Europe, not a list of countries in it. As for the issue of extra workload, the template itself gives us a list of the main articles that contain the template, and there are plenty of other ways of quickly determining what pages contain the template (for example, placing a temporary category on the Template page, giving us a page called Pages containing the Europe Template).Randomwellwisher 16:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Support. if there is consensus on the template naming issue. - Pernambuco 01:13, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Other consensus

If there's a consensus to accept template names that are a little more informative, is there also a consensus for the following general features:

The use of &nbsp;s to anticipate and manage linewrapping (i.e. so that lines don't begin with divider/separator characters (e.g. middots) and names consisting of two or more words are either not split or are split meaningfully across lines);

Either the alignment or the removal of icon-images (e.g. the flags currently in {{Turkic-speaking}} and similar templates) that otherwise, I suggest, detract from templates' appearance;

An acceptance of the middot character (·), perhaps in bold (·), as a general divider/separator character, especially as it seems less obstrusive than the bullet (•) or vertical-line (|) characters (both, I suggest, drawing too much attention away from templates' text as they are either too prominent (bullet) or of similar height/proportions as the text (vertical-line)).

Support. Templates are supposed to look good and be useful to the reader. Ease-of-editing concerns are not important (witness any template that uses Parserfunctions!). These proposals improve the appearance of country-list templates in general. — Saxifrage✎ 17:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Support. It's important to be very careful when including flags in templates. They can very easily take up a lot of space or affect the layout when they are put in. Tra(Talk) 17:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Nations outside Europe

Nations that are entirely in another location outside of Europe, should not be included--Caligvla 16:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

There are good reasons for each of the countries and territories marked with a "2". Could you be more specific in your objection? — Saxifrage✎ 00:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Unrecognized...

I apologize in advance if I am being too bold but I changed the word "states" to "countries" in the definition of of "unrecognised countries". I did this because of the name of the article which the text wikilinks to: See 'List of unrecognized countries'.
Now there is consistency. The term which is used there is now the term which is used here. "Unrecognized countries" means the same thing. If I did something wrong, just revert me and no offense. - Pernambuco 01:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Could you explain better, so we can understand your motivation? I have a problem with this. If you just reverted my single word, that is OK. But you did not merely revert me. You deleted the whole entry, for all of these entities[1]. You should know that this box is currently in use in some of the article pages for these places, i.e.[2]. When you make drastic changes to a template like that, it affects all of Wikipedia in unintended ways. - Pernambuco 13:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Why do you keep deleting them? The consensus in List of countries is to include them since they are de facto independent. --Polaron | Talk 19:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. This is only a template. We can not make these decisions. There has been extensive discussion already on the appropropriate Talk pages of these lists. We are merely following their consensus, for consistency. If a new country appears tomorrow on that list, we will add it here. If a country merges with another one tomorrow, and it disappears from their list, we will remove it from our template as well. Consistency, OK. This is not a one-man show. It is an encyclopedia. Respect the work of others and do not reinvent the wheel. - Pernambuco 23:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

if this user does not want to defend his argument then just ignore him. He uses words like "POV pushing" against those of us who think that his reverts were irresponsible. But: We must merely follow the standards that are already developed Wikipedia-wide and stable version practises. - Pernambuco 22:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Attempts to include territories/states/whatever not recognized by the UN could then be reverted on sight. I'm not sure if anything could be more effective/straightforward for this or the other continental navigation templates... Regards, David Kernow(talk) 20:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Good suggestion. I have moved this article to reflect POV pushing of unrecognized countries. Wissahickon Creektalk 20:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Good god people. I moved this back to Template:Europe because "recognized, dependent and unrecognized countries" is already implied by the fact that those countries are considered to be part of Europe by someone. Whatever else you move it to, keep it simple please. pschemp | talk 22:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Doing that "per David Kernow" would also include adding a link at the bottom to a "List of" article on the unrecognised states/countries/whatever per his suggestion. I found List of unrecognized countries, but it is too broad. What would you suggest be best to link? — Saxifrage✎ 06:59, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I was going to look into this myself sometime later today, hopefully, but if anything appropriate found already, great! I'm imagining a note at the bottom of the template along the lines of "For dependent and other territories in or associated with Europe, see ArticleName." So, assuming noone makes a substantive objection to the above in the next few hours, renaming the template Countries of Europe would entail replacing the current "Other territories entities [sic]" with this note. Regards, David Kernow(talk) 09:00, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Is the plan only to list sovereign countries or would you include dependent territories listed as countries by the UN? We should make sure that this is also used for templates for the other continents to have internal consistency within the enyclopedia. --Polaron | Talk 13:13, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The plan is to list only recognized countries by UN, I would not include list of all dependent territories. It's too much mixture here anyway, it's better this way without them.--Wissahickon Creektalk 13:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit conflict]

Even though yes, there are UN-recogniz/sed territories, I was thinking of the former, to try to reduce any temptation to add unrecogniz/sed territories. Do you think, though, this would be too restrictive...? Thanks, David(talk) 13:49, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

My preference would be to include UN-recognized dependencies but if the consensus is to include recognized sovereign states only then I'll go with that. --Polaron | Talk 14:07, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, consensus is to have only recognized sovereign states only. However thank you Polaron for your work. Thank you. --Wissahickon Creektalk 14:27, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify: I'm referring to dependencies that are usually listed separately in the UN list of countries. They are not sovereign states but are recognized as countries by the UN. --Polaron | Talk 14:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't be so quick to announce what consensus is. You actually have to wait and see if other people are going to contribute to the discussion first.

There is no consensus. This is a template. The criteria for inclusion is already developed elsewhere on Wikipedia. The same with regards to naming criteria. If someone does not agree with a name, or with the presence of an entity, then discuss it there. The main list to use is List of countries. There is also a List of sovereign states. In both cases, the unrecognized countries are included. When they get removed there, we have to remove them here, too. How hard is that to understand? - Pernambuco 22:28, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

It was discuss to remove all unrecognized territories from Europe. How can be a state sovereign state since it's not recognized by UN? --Wissahickon Creektalk 05:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Michael that is a good question indeed but this is the wrong place to ask it. Go to List of countries and discuss it there. Go to List of sovereign states and discuss it there, too. When you reach consensus, then they will remove the entities from their lists. When they do that, then we can remove them from our template. But while they are still part of the established Wikipedia lists for countries and for sovereign states, we are forced to take note of that. We are forced to make our template here comply with the rest of Wikipedia. This is called consistency. You can not change just one corner, and especially not on a template which is used on lots of pages, because that will have unforeseen consequences. Please do not continue to edit out this until you understand the importance of a stable version in templates and the importance of consistency with already-established lists. If you want to change these lists, just go there and tell the editors, but the place is not here for that discussion. - Pernambuco 05:30, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

WC, please refrain from making controversial edits without consensus first. Wikipedia is not about each editor stating their opinion by reverting. This applies to everyone as well. Khoikhoi 06:13, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I deliberately avoided Michael's (Wissahickon Creek's) question, but not because I can not answer it. As I stated, I avoided it because it is not up to me, him, or anyone else to have that discussion here, on this talk page. The proper place for such a disussion is here and here. To the extent that these two lists determine which entitites should be included and which entities should not, then we follow what has been decided. Consistency. Encyclopedia-wide standards. - Pernambuco 06:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I will answer for you since you avoided my question deliberately. Unrecognized territories serve as gateways for money laundering, afford ground for illegal privatization, property seizure, trafficking and all sorts of other ultra-profitable businesses for the bureaucratic capital. It appears that definitions of “legitimacy” are being used to justify the political situation in unrecognized republics. Recognition of the so-called unrecognized states is far off. The unrecognized territories, even with a presence of will of their authorities, are unable to provide on the own territory the rights of native population instead of the following factors:

- impossibility of the official commercial contacts taking compels regional business fully to go away to shade and to become the basis of criminalization of society;

- an unfavorable economic situation draws the exceptionally low level of life of population, that is a major negative factor;

- separatisits authorities spent major part of material resources on providing of foreign-policy status quo and maintenance of administrative vehicle, they can not put these resources to the fight against criminality;

- absence of legal financial resources provokes separatist authorities on participation in total contraband of goods, drugs, weapon, and people, as these are the most profitable types of international activity;

- unrecognized territories can not officially use the foreign and international aid;

- the indicated factors improve the concentration on separatist territories of criminal element from contiguous regions.

Thus, any unrecognized region automatically becomes a territory which is dangerous for the residence of native population. Thus important to understand that separatism is primary, but it is not the same or a product of a criminalization of society, as it sometimes the states try to represent. International association has no tools of influence on the unrecognized territories –they are not the subjects of international legal relationships and don’t carry any responsibility; their leaders, as a rule, do not accomplish the acts which international responsibility comes for; the population of these territories can not carry collective responsibility for support of illegal power as an international law in general does not contain the institute of collective responsibility or collective duties. Power solving of these problems is enough not simple – if on those territory is not accomplished the international crimes (genocide) the input of national and even international military powers can be acknowledged as violation of principle of peaceful permission of conflicts. Moreover, such conflict will be regulated by the norms of international humanitarian law, including Hague conventions. The problem of unrecognized territories is often reduced to the formal, legal format. Meanwhile, the issue is not simply a matter of complex legal cases. The conflicts between recognized and unrecognized territories are not the usual interstate disputes. The very creation of unrecognized territories and the beginning of the struggle for their recognition are facts of emotional, symbolic, social and cultural nature. Failure to take these facts into consideration makes impossible any effective settlement of ethnic conflicts that are an inevitable concomitant of these special state entities. The problem of unrecognized territories is the best subject for research on the balance between legal and actual aspects of state-building (or nation-building, political legitimization). The 19th-century German writer and politician, Ferdinand Lassalle, spoke of two kinds of constitution – "formal" and "actual." Analysis of the nature of unrecognized territories would yield better results if made from the position of "formal" constitutional law.

Thus,

а) the separatism is the reason of concentration of transnational criminality;

b) the victim states names this criminality as a terrorism for a legitimating of own fight with separatism.

He is probably right on all of these items. Question is: Why is he posting them here? We are a template. We follow other lists as a rule on what our inclusion/exclusion criteria should be. His whole text should be posted here and here. When he can get consensus with the editors there to change those lists, then we automatically change the template here also. We can specifically NOT make political arguments for what to include or not. - Pernambuco 23:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but your arguments for removing unrecognised states from the template appear to be political. That's explicitly not a good reason at Wikipedia (see WP:NPOV). Do you have a reason that is relevant? — Saxifrage✎ 18:02, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but did you meant to say that it's NPOV to have unrecognized states by UN in the list? It means that you don't have a clue about the inviolability of international borders about the conducted ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories, about the illegal and notorious practice aimed at unlawful alteration of the demographic situation in the occupied territories.--Wissahickon Creektalk 18:12, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I didn't say that. You may be right that they don't belong, but political reasons are what you have given, and political reasons are invalid at Wikipedia. We do not make content decisions based on real-world politics, ever. Why I invoked NPOV is because that is a core meaning of neutrality: doing anything here for political reasons is inherently non-neutral.

What I think is the trouble is that you have tried to explain why the UN doesn't recognise them. It doesn't matter why, only that it is a fact the UN doesn't recognise them. If we were going to base this template on the UN's recognition of states, that is all that would matter. However, we are not going to do that. This template reflects List of countries. — Saxifrage✎ 23:06, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the whole thing is a political rant. Actually, I agree with what Wissahickon Creek says but we can not let our personal likes or dislikes determine what goes onto the list. In this case, like Saxifrage points out, our template merely follows what List of countries includes, not more and not less. By the way, it also follows the List of sovereign states. If the user (Wissahickon Creek) has a problem with some of the entities on those lists, he should go there and seek consensus to make his proposed changes. It is important that there are standards and consistency on all Wikipedia pages, lists and all templates. This is why we can not make unilateral changes here just because we think it would be cool (It isn't). - Pernambuco 23:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

All the unrecognized territories are characterised by the relatively peaceful handling of ethnic and linguistic conflict potential. National identity consists of three main components: the national state, the national language and the history of the national people. Liberation and separation from national state are important aspects of this identity. Government policy focussed on nation building and economic reform are neglected. In order to understand this it is important to point to two factors: the first is the raison d’être of the state and the second is the peculiarities of the national polity. Discussion of the future of Europe continues to be a marginal political issue, partly because of the resistance of states, on both the practical (bureaucratic) and conceptual levels, created by the government leaders and heads of state. In turn, the nation-states are challenged from within by independent and separatist movements that have laid bare the fundamental hypocrisy of rhetorical discussions of the principle regarding the self-determination of peoples; interfering with states (and their borders) has proven to be a taboo for Europe. The growing flexibility of the globalised economy should be paralleled by a growing flexibility in the conception of the division and political organisation of territory, but this is not the case. Further inflexibility stems from the socio-economic inequity that we accept in our daily lives as normal, in particular as regards inequality in the use and division of territory. Equality, or better egaliberté (equality and liberty), is a sufficiently dynamic and flexible concept to be taken as a point of reference in envisaging the society, Europe, and world of tomorrow. It is only through the concept of egaliberté that we can imagine a Europe based on relations between regions that are conceived and organised on multiple scales and not as region-nations conceived on the basis of ethnicity or in the name of supposed cultural homogeneity. Maastricht deadlines, who is going to adopt the single currency, how to expand the Schengen Agreement, which language is to be used throughout Europe to overcome linguistic problems resulting from its expansion, which decisions will be unanimous and which will receive majority support, and so on – all these problems are debated as if they were technical questions, whereas they are political problems and their solution depends on the resistance of the states (and of some of their centres of politico-economic power). Until the politico-cultural centrality of the nationstate, and to what degree it will survive in tomorrow’s Europe, is squarely dealt with, the main political stumbling block to the building of a new Europe will remain unresolved. In recent years, the main geopolitical thrust – to a degree all over the world but particularly in Europe – has focused on ethno-national claims. The demise of the political blocs encouraged new political entities to regain their linguistic, religious, ethnic, and cultural identities These iconographies all relate to well-defined territories and consequently have led to claims of independence or, at the very least, autonomy. The separatist movements already in Europe have found new impetus for their claims, while the terms federation and confederation are increasingly being used to refer not just to the building of Europe but also to the ‘restructuring’ of the existing states within the Union. If a United Europe were already established, we would

probably now have a plethora of requests for secession and declarations of independence by states now in existence – and this would be justified. Each state can claim a national identity based on language, history, religion, ethnicity, culture, and so on. But, in turn, a great many European regions, now within the boundaries of nations, would have just cause to claim independence in the name of the principles of self determination which are, on paper, guaranteed by many international documents, beginning with the UN Charter. This is exactly the view held by many supporters of the so-called Europe of Regions: a supranational body in which the different European regions can have a greater measure of autonomy than the limitations imposed on them inside certain nation-states However, ethno-national claims are dangerous since they are a source of conflict. Their assumptions are all based on iconography, that is, on stasis – they operate on the level of the emotions and not reason, and stem from a view of space and territory in which borders are seen as dividing oneself from the ‘others’ view can lead to ethnic cleansing, in the most extreme cases, or to the spread (or re-legitimisation) of racism. In other cases it can lead to peace of mind, stemming from feeling alike and equal in one’s own backyard and in a dominant position over any internal minority groups. The process of economic globalisation is today considered both in a positive light and as irresistible. It does, however, seem to cause mobility and change. But it is worthwhile examining the matter in depth because both deterritorialising elements and others with roots in ‘static’ territories exist. The driving force of capitalism, of which globalisation is one of the most topical and evident aspects, is its flexibility and ability to adapt to conditions as it finds them, that is to say, it possesses a variable geometry – in its relationship with territory, it does not iconographically identify with anyone, since it aims at experience. Its flexibility is due to the fact that it seeks to create links with suitable territories and abandons exploited territories without remorse. Furthermore, it takes no interest in territories until they become suitable. Much has already been written about the de-territorialisation of the global economy in contrast with national economies, and this distinction is indisputable.--Wissahickon Creektalk 07:42, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Please stay on-topic. That appears to have nothing to do with the matter at hand. — Saxifrage✎ 09:14, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's exactly on topic, isn't it about the unrecognized territories of Europe? Well, unrecognized geopolitical entities (most importantly for our discussion, criminal states), if viewed from a formal and legal point of view, do not exist for the international community. The “virtual” existence of those states prevent them from being real participants in the world scene. The Americanization and Europeanization of the post-Soviet space was largely caused by the desire of the internationally recognized post-Soviet states to regain military and political control over territories they had lost (unrecognized entities). The emergence of GUUAM (originally comprised of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova, and now known as GUAM after Uzbekistan withdrew from the organization in 2005) and the Community of Democratic Choice, which comprises nine countries from the Balkan, Baltic and Black Sea regions, as alternatives to the CIS was a reaction to Russia’s support for the unrecognized states. The conflicts between recognized and unrecognized states are not the usual interstate disputes. Thus, the absence of formal international recognition of these contentious territories prevent them from being major political actors in the post-Soviet space. Wissahickon Creektalk 09:35, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

You are arguing about whether these political entities should exist or should (not) be recognised. This is not debatable here. Since Wikipedia does not have the power to affect this issue, please desist from posting essays on this subject. Remember that "Wikipedia is not a soapbox" is firm policy. — Saxifrage✎ 18:10, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Be conservative with TEMPLATE changes

Time to remind everyone: Do not make changes to a stable version of a template. Templates are used on a wide variety of Wikipedia pages and projects. A change here will affect those pages. Sometimes affect them in unexpected ways. It is easy to make changes on individual pages, but templates are different. Be very conversative when doing so. There has to be a very good reason and it has to be discussed amply here, first. Otherwise we can "break" other pages on Wikipedia that we don't even know about. The best solution is to not touch a template and just not make any edits there at all, unless the name of a country changes or its political situation. - Pernambuco 23:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Freedom is a concept that is difficult to define and ‘enforce’ – it can, in fact, be ‘freely’ used by anyone and it is impossible to copyright the term. Fraternity may be left to the good intentions of individuals, but equality is intrinsically real and can only be effectively defined (and seen and perceived) on a practical level. I ought to point out that I am not talking about a Marxinspired vision of equality – from the very beginning the Marxist vision was too ‘iconographic’ and, in practice, clearly linked to a static concept of territorial control. But the movement factor is inescapable in human dynamics and, as the recent history of the Soviet bloc showed, it can only be temporarily eliminated. Etienne Balibar’s analysis of the egaliberté concept (equality is inseparable from freedom) is

interesting and one might even agree with it. However, since he has a Marxist background, it is no surprise that he cannot escape the concept of the state as being central – “There is no society without a state”. The state, however, is an iconography, whereas egaliberté is a movement factor, since it relates to the right of the individual, irrespective of geographic position, ethnic group, or culture. Using egaliberté as an interpretive key allows us to analyse the use made of territory and to pinpoint those controlling it. Equality becomes real if it is possible to organise its changing forms. In order to do this, equality needs space divided according to free agreements and not in terms of possession/property, inflexible views of pre-defined human groups (peoples, specific ethnic groups), or sacred boundaries. Conceptually speaking, egaliberté is strongly opposed to iconographies. Throughout the course of history there have always been changes in, and the interweaving of, peoples and cultures but they have mostly occurred as part of a winner-loser relationship. One would hope that such events could come about through negotiation and agreement, and that this could be possible because barriers are not insurmountable or, rather, we should not consider them as such. For example, I am sure that no one would have forecast the rapid disintegration of the USSR because of the power of the movement factor. What is more, throughout history there have been many, many cases of co-operation and the resolution of problems without bloodshed. ‘What a smaller entity can do should not be done by a larger entity,’is a libertarian idea of the 20th century, but a similar concept was adopted by the Council of Europe in its Charter of Self-Government. I will conclude saying that we should list only states accepted by UN. --Wissahickon Creektalk 07:48, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

That all had nothing to do with your last sentence. Please stay on-topic and try to ground your arguments in Wikipedia policy. — Saxifrage✎ 09:09, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

"Other territories entities"

What does this mean? If it means either/or, then it should say something like "Other territories and entities". If it means a possessive, then it should have an apostrophe after "territories". The current version makes little sense and looks frankly rather illiterate. Loganberry (Talk) 01:03, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Total illiterate and POV. Not to mention misleading.--Wissahickon Creektalk 07:12, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe it's supposed to be "Other territories and entities". Unless the template is unlocked soon (which, considering the state of consensus on this Talk page, seems unlikely), an admin will have to make that change. — Saxifrage✎ 09:11, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Unrecognized countries yet again

Wissahickon Creek has asked those on the talk page of List of countries for input on this issue. I haven't read all of the long threads here (but note that people have rightly pointed out that Wissahickon Creek's objections are about whether these countries should exist, not whether they do exist).

I feel unrecognized countries should be included on this template since they are clearly an important part of the political landscape of Europe. As for the criteria for inclusion, you should probably use the same criteria as on List of countries. If an entity is a de facto or de jure state, it should be included (excluding micronations). A de jure state is included because everyone else thinks it's a state. A de facto state is included because it clearly is a state. Micronations are excluded (here I'm specifically thinking of Sealand), because they generally do not have de facto control—the lack of "control" by the sovereign state is through apathy, not impotence or treaty. It's no different from if a squatter on some land proclaimed independence for that land—if the country that land is part of doesn't evict the squatter, that doesn't really mean there is de facto control in a political sense. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 14:10, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

It is quite clear that we do not yet have a consensus. Current changes to the stable format of the template are therefore not appropriate (regardless of whether an admin does it or not). In the case of Wissachickon Creek, there is currently an inquiry at the Wikipedia Administrators' Noticeboards, under "Incidents".[3]

one of the administrators told him this warning: you have become increasingly disruptive on 'Template:Europe' among others, to the point where you are focusing on it at the expense of any other editing.[4]

The best thing now is to continue to discuss this. I am on the same page as Osgoodelawyer and share his views on this. - Pernambuco 13:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Recent changes

Please see here for an account of the changes I've made today, in the belief I was implementing consensus but with apologies if this is not the case. As of this message's timestamp, the templates {{Countries of Europe}} and {{Dependent and other territories of Europe}} constitute the former {{Europe}} template; there has been – at least, should be! – no information loss or gain. Regards, David Kernow(talk) 13:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you David for your edits. I support your view, however when I tried to explain my views in details people get nervous. --Wissahickon Creektalk 15:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

No, just uninterested and concerned about WP:NOT (soapbox) violations.

Anyway, I think this is a good compromise, especially since the dependent..etc template is linked from the countries one. (To be clear though, I would also support it all being in one template, so my support of this shouldn't be construed as un-supporting that alternative.) — Saxifrage✎ 16:34, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it should all be in one template. Otherwise, there will be no direct link from the unrecognized countries to recognized countries, something that is likely to be of significant use. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 19:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

OzLawyer, like in real life, unrecognized regions don't have the same status otherwise it would be the same. So, this new template is the reflection of this status. Nothing wrong with this one. I agree with this template. --Wissahickon Creektalk 19:56,

30 October 2006 (UTC)

Wissahickon Creek has already received a warning from an administrator.[5] It includes this: "you have become increasingly disruptive on Template:Europe ([6] among others), to the point where you are focusing on it at the expense of any other editing.[7]". He is currently in two different cases on Incidents, part of Admin's Noticeboard. - Pernambuco 01:20, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Nobody is arguing that they have the same status, in real life or here. If they were arguing that, then they would be saying they need to be inserted as "Countries" in the template, not as something distinct and separate. — Saxifrage✎ 23:28, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The argument on status and so on is not for this page. This is a template. It should only include what List of countries has and what List of sovereign states has. When a territory is included, even as an "unrecognized country", it should be included in our template here, too. I disagree with David Kernow and with the suspected sockpuppet, Wissahickon Creek. I agree with Saxifrage and with OzLawyer. These places should be included in the template to the extent that they are included in the other Wikipedia lists. This is about consistency and about maintaining standards. - Pernambuco 01:20, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I urge you to retract your words and please stop your personal attacks. Actually your behaviour is rummy and rather dubious not mine. --Wissahickon Creektalk 13:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Retain {{Countries of X}} and {{Dependent and other territories of X}} with appropriate link/s to (article/s about) each other's content, as my understanding is that a country is a "territory" that has (wide) international recognition of sovereignty.

I also wonder if List of countries and List of sovereign states might need some attention, i.e. not all the "countries" listed there are countries according to the above. My interest here is consistency too but also templates that aren't overloaded and/or cluttered. Whatever the consensus might be (and my impression is that it's for something along the lines of the status quo) I'm happy to work for, toward and with it! Regards, David(talk) 04:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Do we need two lists if countries equals sovereign states? Why do we have two lists? Is country equal to sovereign state? - Privacy 22:09, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Good question. Maybe the authors and maintainers of the lists can tell you. Why do you ask here? THis is only a template. We depend on content decisions for the what the other list(s) carry. This is what I have been trying to tell Wissahickon Creek and David Kernow. We can not make our own decisions. There is a need to standardize: Content, wording. It is gnome work. But it has to be done. Why is this so hard to understand? - Pernambuco 23:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Kernow is not making edits to the two lists. What I want is his answer. - Privacy 09:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

As regards needing two lists, I'm not sure. I was just trying to implement what seemed to be a consensus to follow that route. As regards standardization/gnome work, I suppose ideas and consensus can flow both ways, from templates to other areas as well as vice versa. Regards, David(talk) 02:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there any consensus to remove everything other than sovereign states? Show us if there is any. - Privacy 22:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

No one comments on exclusion of dependent territories. And you did not suggest that. - Privacy 20:10, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to get some answers out of him, too. In a nice way. It was uncalled for that he used his Admin privilege to override the changes of everyone else, at a time when there was no consensus and when the page had been locked down specifically for this reason. There was (and is) and ongoing discussion in this Talk page at the time, but he was no longer participating in it. Instead he made some highly dubious changes, which - by the way, and this is no small point - do not coincide with how these lists on the rest of Wikipedia is managed. If he feels that some entities should not be included, he should at the very least have made his argument here (in this Talk page) before making these changes, and should have sought consensus. In my case, I would not have granted it, since I firmly believe, and have said so, that it is Wikipedia's best interest to ensure that all of our templates match all of our lists. In other words, content decisions should be handled on those other lists first, and we (here in a template) should simply follow whatever these lists decide to include or exclude. - Pernambuco 13:06, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry if my good-faith attempt to implement what seemed to be the consensus appears partisan; I have no axe to grind. I think what might be most constructive is if you ask another admin – say Messedrocker, who protected the template – to review the situation. Regards, David Kernow(talk) 02:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree David, not all the regions who self declare themselves as "countries" are countries. Most of them are just criminal regimes. --Wissahickon Creektalk 13:16, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Whatever they are or are not: If they are included on the lists in the rest of Wikipedia, they have to be included here. We are just a template. We can not make these decisions. The other pages have editors and maintainers. If we disagree with their choices, we settle it there. Not here. Otherwise wikipedia will go down the drain in a big, unordered mess. - Pernambuco 23:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

As I have mentioned elsewhere, List of countries may be a featured list, but it isnt immune from contestations, of which there are actually many. Some editors are prone to insisting that all country lists conform to this one article, but have they not realised that the list nearly amounts to a case of original research?--Huaiwei 12:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Then that is a fault with the list that needs to be corrected at the list. Templates are necessarily dependent on real articles. Making this template say something in contradiction from the list would be a content fork in effect, which is strongly discouraged. The job of this template is not to fix the mistakes of the list it is based on. — Saxifrage✎ 19:20, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes of course. This is so obvious. What should also be said: Naturally, this is Wikipedia so nothng is immune from contestations. You don't like what they include? Fix it there. State your case. Then I guarantee you that we will respect it here, too. Whatever changes they make will be made in this template as well. If not, not. - Pernambuco 23:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Unrecognized countries

Unrecognized countries are related to:

regions accompanied by a number of ethnic conflicts, civil wars etc often created by "big brother" countries

Group capabilities include all resources and abilities of a group in a medium or long-term perspective to assert themselves against other groups. This includes first of all material resources such as arms, but also political cohesion or social capital for that matter. In a setting with almost equal capabilities of the two sides its might be more favourable to sustain or ′freeze′ the conflict than to come to a solution. If the incentive structure would make key players on both sides worse off with a peaceful resolution those players might even collude in preventing the implementation of popular demands for an end of hostilities. External players, such as Russia are a decisive intervening variable in sustaining or changing this incentive structure.

civil society - where is it? :)

Example: Transnistria Because formally, in the self-proclaimed “Transnistrian Moldovan Republic” there are certain signs of the existence of “third sector” structures and groupings, usually perceived as the evidence of emerging or developing civil society in post-totalitarian transition countries. Indeed, about 600 local public organisations got official registration by spring-2005. This statistics, together with the assertions like “here in Transnistria… we have a multiparty political system functioning from the very beginning, private media independent from the state, freely operating oppositional social and political structures…” (Dmitri Soin, head of a department in the “Ministry of State Security of the TMR” and director of the Transnistrian subsidiary of the Russian Institute for National Strategy, 21 April 2005) aim at creating an image of a “modern, democratic, European state” – meaning exactly the region almost unanimously characterised as a “black hole of Europe”. Therefore, if anybody outside the TMR can hardly be deceived by this brightly coloured façade, does it mean that such cohesive and consistent propaganda, lasting for over 13 years, is actually quite harmless and may evoke only smiles and/or mockeries, being not worth of closer attention or serious analysis? The answer would be negative, because in such a way, the state of minds of a significant proportion of local population – which exactly is impossible to assess due to the lack (and impossibility) of any reliable sociological data – is being shaped within this closed society, isolated from the rest of not only Moldova but actually from the real world.

As a result of this experiment, the population of Transnistria passed from one totalitarian regime to another – separatist and repressive one – with a traumatic imprint of short but violent bloody conflict in between. And even the emerging opposition to the repressive “regime of Smirnov” (regularly re-elected “president of the PMR”) differs significantly from democratic opposition in post-totalitarian transition countries: it often exhibits not so much aspirations for modern European-style democracy as nostalgia for Soviet times, adhering at the same time to the notion of Transnistrian “statehood”.

Internet - Concerning younger generations, another trends could have been expected. Being more active, mobile, and often better educated, having access to Internet and other sources of diversified information, it would be only natural for them not to accept the gloomy realities of everyday life in their unrecognized region, seeking instead some better destiny.

Stereotypes - As a result of a regular brainwashing, for many in Transnistria old myths and stereotypes pertaining to the Cold War epoch persist alive and topical. Therefore, it is easy to convince local population that, for instance, “if Russian peacekeepers would leave the area, tomorrow NATO tanks will be here”. And to present these imagined ”threats” in a most convincing way, further “strategies” have been developed and disseminated by Transnistrian media.

The main conclusions and recommendations to be drawn from the available up to now information on civil society in unrecognized regions are as follows:

- Currently, it is barely possible to speak about civil society in unrecognized regions in terms of generally used and widely shared perceptions and criteria. It is very difficult even to assess the real situation because of the unwillingness of local authorities and, in many cases, representatives of “Third Sector” to provide any kind of impartial and reliable information. The most visible “NGOs” and other agencies usually represent here the structures not arising from a “grass root level” but artificially established “from above”.

-Their activities are subject to strict control on the part of authorities, with leading role of security bodies, and often follow instructions and command of the latter.

“frozen conflicts” ...

negative symptoms such as considerable wear and tear and lack of means for modernization, stagnation of the basis – agriculture, decreasing population’ incomes, de-population, especially in rural areas, due to migration, deficit of qualified personnel.

secessionist conflicts involving non-recognized de facto states or federated states.

I've written maybe too much, but I wanted to explain better what is a state and what is an unrecognized region. Wissahickon Creektalk 13:59, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

"Maybe" too much? We are a technical maintenance crew for a template which is used on dozens of other pages. They rely on us to make sure that our template is reliable. We do not make politicial decisions, so please post your political opinions elsewhere. Our job is technical: We make sure that our list matches the other lists in the encyclopedia. In terms of content, identical spelling, same links, and so on. That is all. If the unrecognized countries are on the other lists, then we have to have them here, too. It is as simple as that, and if you turn it into a political issue then we will never reach any agreement and the template will never be fixed. - Pernambuco 23:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

This issue is not in dispute. Please stop posting long essays on this subject. The question is whether unregonized entities etc ought to be included in the template, not what they are. — Saxifrage✎ 16:14, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I can read personal attack in French just as well as in English; please knock it off. "[t]he above arguments" are irrelevant, because Wikipedia is not about deciding what is true about the real world. We document reality, we don't dictate it. Do you have a real argument? — Saxifrage✎ 19:16, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

No dear Saxifrage. If you don't accept my arguments (and for God sake there are many of them above) you should bring other arguments so that you can counter-argument my arguments. I just compared my arguments, which you defined them as "essays" and I've told you you lack of arguments and you bring pueril arguments. That's not a personal attack. It seems to me that you don't have a real argument. Isn't it so? --Wissahickon Creektalk 19:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

No, I will not bring counterarguments to irrelevancies. As you've said here, you seem to believe that it's Wikipedia job to write truth. This is wrong. Our job is to report what others have said in a verifiable way. I'm not going to bother rebutting arguments that have nothing to do with the point of Wikipedia, but I will continue to ask you to stop disrupting Wikipedia with them. — Saxifrage✎ 20:14, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree 1000% with Saxifrage. This is getting tiresome and it is disruptive. Wissachickon Creek is currently under investigation in two separate cases, on the Administrators Noticeboard, section "Incidents". Please let us all just get back to the business of fixing the template by making sure that its content matches the list. - Pernambuco 23:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I declare myself satisfied with the current version of the template.Wissahickon Creektalk 20:17, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

It is locked from editing which was the result of your continued reverts. This is what the admins warned you abouts and they said it was disruptive. However, another admid (David Kernow) used his admin powers to override the page protection. He changed the page without first addressing the ongoing dispute here (in Talk page). I complained to him on his User Talk page and he gave me a very nice and civilized reply. After pointing out the lack of consensus to him, I expected him to revert himself. He did not do this and the current version of the template is a huge departure from the previous, stable version. It can not stay. - Pernambuco 23:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Per my recent posts above, I think it might be best if another admin reviewed the situation here. I hope this might be acceptable to all. Regards, David Kernow(talk) 02:32, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Just FYI to all, our helpful friend Wissahickon Creek has been banned due to being a sockpuppet. Perhaps now we can get something useful done. — Saxifrage✎ 07:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Outside review

Good day, everyone! As the guy who protected the template from editing due to wars, I've decided what the issue is apparently: the inclusion of dependents. The best way to approach this is to see what the precedent is.

All the templates that include dependencies are simply titled after the continent, whereas the ones that don't specifically denote "Countries of..." In order to establish what ought to be done, we should have a more centralized discussion about the issue. —this is messedrocker(talk) 02:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for such a prompt response, Messedrocker! I'd only add to the above that {{North America}}, {{South America}}, {{Oceania}} and any template containing links to "countries" but whose name is only a region is due for rename to {{Countries of X}} per the consensus which I hope I have not misconstrued... Regards, David Kernow(talk) 02:32, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, the conclusion that can be made now based on the above evidence that if this template is going to be Countries of Europe, then dependencies can't be included. If this is just going to be Europe then it can. —this is messedrocker(talk) 02:44, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'd say any template that has the name of a region as its name has a name that's insufficiently informative (!); {{Europe}} and the like simply beg the question "What related to Europe [or whatever the region name]...?". Hence my suggestion that they're either called {{Countries of X}} (and accompanied by {{Dependent and other territories of X}}) or {{Countries and territories of X}} (Countries and dependent/other territories combined). David(talk) 07:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

We should contact the editors of the non-Countries-of templates and ask them if they'd agree. —this is messedrocker(talk) 11:29, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Go with something like the Americas, and make sure you reintroduce the unrecognized countries. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 12:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course. Full support. It does not matter if the template is "Europe" or "Countries of Europe" because the unrecognized countries are part of Europe, too. We can leave out the dependencies if the template is just called "Europe" but we have to include the unrecognized states either way, and rememebr that they are not merely "territories" either. - Pernambuco 18:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. Recognized,Partly recognized or Unrecognized are subjective concepts,status may change in the future.

I think something is wrong with remarks (1 and 2) in template.ie.1 Partly on another continent. 2 Entirely on another continent but having sociopolitical connections with Europe.

Armenia:2 but Georgia and Azerbaijani has:1.They are at the same geographic place(Georgia much closer to Europe).My suggestion lets remark them with 1(also they have sociopolitic connections with Europe).

Kazakhstan1; seems wrong, since this country fully in asia.Lets remark it 2 .

Cyprus2;This country can be accepted fully in Europe;There is no any land between continent and this contry, one neighbour(Greece) is in EU, another is candidate(Turkey) to EU.

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus2,3;"2" like above, "3" Recognized only by.. makes no sense and create disorder.Of course there are other disputes on other "unrecognized" contries.If we would add other remarks(4,5....n) then template will have a collection of numbers. All related articles has some tags for disputes,and any reader can be informed.

Cyprus isn't counted as being in Europe because it is closest to Turkey, and no contemporary definition of Europe (at least, that I'm aware of, as there are very many) includes Turkey. Note that the European Union and Europe are different, and their borders do not match. — Saxifrage✎ 20:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Cyprus is counted as being "in" Europe by many because it's considered European in nature (as are Armenia and Georgia). Turkey is partly in Europe (the part west of the Bosphorus/Dardanelles. Kazakhstan is also considered to be partly in Europe, which leaves open the possibility of EU membership in the future (although this is not likely any time soon), since the EU requires a country have some part of its territory lie within Europe (which begs the question of how Cyprus got in). └OzLawyer / talk┐ 21:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Apologies if my comment insufficiently clear: Whether or not they include non-sovereign territories, I believe "Europe", "Asia", etc aren't sufficient as template names as they don't indicate what in relation to Europe/Asia/etc the templates contain. Regards, David Kernow(talk) 02:37, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Clearly the EU is not inforcing geographical requirements, Cyprus while entirely in Asia, has a strong Hellenic culture and a very chummy relationship with the Greeks. So that's how it got in. But nations that are completely outside of Europe should not be in the template, leave Cyprus in the EU template but take it out of the Countries of Europe temp. Take Armenia out too, there is no reason for it to be there, it doesn't even border Europe and the Armenian govt. sees itself as part of Asia Minor.--Caligvla 21:22, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

That bit about Armenian authorities and Asia Minor is a blatant lie, cite a source for that. Armenia is a member of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament noted Jan 12 2002 that Armenia and Georgia may enter the EU in future [8], presumably, this means they meet the Copenhagen criteria (including the geographic criteria). Armenia has some relevance in this template.--Tekleni 21:28, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeap, that is an intentional lie. The Armenian government considers itself to be entirely within Europe and as a European country. Armenia is Europe. This is a fact, it's not a response to a question.- Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Vartan Oskanian [9] also [10]--Eupator 21:39, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

By doing a quick review of your Talk page, I can see that this is an issue that you and Caligvla have been in dispute over and there is in fact quite a lot of evidence for each position. Please don't throw around uncivil words like "lies" and the like when it is a simple case of content dispute. Also, this is not the place to resolve your dispute. Take it to Armenia and then, when you have reached consensus there, you are both welcome to come here as ambassadors for your agreed-on consensus. — Saxifrage✎ 21:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Eupator is correct there are a few Armenian politicians who are trying to reinvent Armenia as a European state so that it may become a future memeber of the EU. If they get in the EU, good for them if that's what they want. It's not the concern or focus of this discussion.

As for Eupator taking the debate here, I am very sorry about that, he wikistalks me, as you can see he was not part of this discussion until I got here, not so much I can do about that, he has been warned many times...--Caligvla 04:47, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

My point is that where the border lies is not a well-established fact anyway, so arguing about it here is going to be (1) ineffective and (2) disruptive to the point of this Talk page, which is template-maintenance, not disputes of content of other articles. (To illustrate my point, notice that I can also pull a map out of a hat that proves my point: Image:Map of Europe (political).png. Notice that the border is in a significantly different place.) — Saxifrage✎ 06:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Not sure if this is relevant to this debate but to support: The Armenian alphabet is recognized as one of the five modern European alphabets by the Unicode standard (see [7]. Therefore, from a linguistic standpoint, the Armenian language is a European language. Serouj 10:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Both maps show Armenia and Cyprus in Asia, do they not? Hence, they should not be included. Thanks--Caligvla 08:25, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

The African, Asian and European templates were renamed and shortened simultaneously. Kernow did all these. Before Kernow renamed them they included dependent territories and unrecognised States. Rename was discussed, shorten was not. - Privacy 22:13, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Straw poll: to include or separate "unrecognised states"

Before we get into another edit war over this, I thought we could try a straw poll to see how opinions lie on this issue. Please indicate which of the two options below you support, or if you like you can object to the way the question has been framed.

The way I'm setting this up is not in the traditional "support/oppose" format, but rather I'm going to list the two options that I have in mind and let people indicate their support for the one(s) they like. Note that by putting unrecognised states in scare quotes I'm trying to remove the question of what to call them from this. (Also because my spelling is obviously at odds with that used in the template ;-) The only thing that I'm intending on investigating right now with this straw poll is whether those things, whatever we call them, should be included in this template (whatever the template might eventually be called). — Saxifrage✎ 23:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The exclusion/inclusion of self-governing territories that do not have full sovereignty should also be made part of the straw poll. Most such territories are themselves listed separately by the UN in their tables and lists. --Polaron | Talk 23:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Saxifrage mentioned only unrecognised States (e.g. the TRNC, Abkhazia). Clearly Greenland and Gibraltar are not part of the discussion. - Privacy 23:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that the most contentious issue is that of the "unrecognised states". Straw polls tend to be burdensome ways of working out what to do with an article, so I don't want to overuse them. I think that we can sort out what to do with dependencies without resorting to a straw poll. However, I'd not be opposed to starting one for that if it turns out that what the consensus is on dependencies becomes murky, as it has with the "unrecognised states". — Saxifrage✎ 00:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it's best to deal with that later if it's needed. BTW, I don't think you really need to remain neutral in this poll, Saxifrage—give us your opinion. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 00:55, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I didn't intend to give the impression I was recusing myself. :-) I thought I'd go away for a bit and see what happens before chiming in, just to give myself some thinking-room on it. I can see arguments for both and just need to sort out what principle I should base my opinion on. — Saxifrage✎ 01:01, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Will dependent territories be taken off from the template, if the straw poll turns out to be taking away unrecognised States? - Privacy 19:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think dependent territories and "unrecognised states" are the same kind of thing at all, so a decision about how to treat one has no bearing on the other. — Saxifrage✎ 20:30, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Suggest a central location is found for this survey so its results may be applied to all similar templates. (If/when one found, please add link to this thread!) Regards, David Kernow(talk) 02:30, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

There doesn't appear to be any contention at the other templates. Should the result of this survey indicate a will to have the entities separated, I think that's when the proposal should be spread to the other pages for consideration. All my intention with this is to clarify what the actual consensus is in the wake of Wissahickon Creek's disruption of the discussion above. — Saxifrage✎ 03:18, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough; once an outcome decided here, it can be used as a reference. Regards, David(talk) 05:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

"Unrecognised states" should be listed in this template

Indicate your support below.

Support absolutely. If they are not included (even if there is a link to a page with them), then they are only properly linked between one another and not between all the countries of Europe, and that's where such links are actually useful. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 00:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Support because they are included in List of countries and List of sovereign states. They are not just included with a link to another page. These lists do not include them as a 'See Also' link, but on the lists themselves. If or when they get removed from those lists, I will support removing them also from this template. Until then, it is important that there are standards on Wikipedia and a lot of consistency over the various pages, projects. The same for wording. Whatever we call these places, we must use the same term as on these other lists. - Pernambuco 03:14, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Pernambuco that we need to have a consistency inside Wikipedia. I changed in the List of countries the word "states" with the words "disputed territories", however I feel we need a separate list of disputed territories and in the list of countries to have a link at "See also" section. Situations are different for each case. Do you know, for example, that Republic of China (Taiwan) (which is listed in the list of countries) didn't ever ask officially independence from China and during Kuomintang rule taiwanese who want independence were persecuted not by government of mainland China, but by government of Taiwan itself?--MariusM 12:31, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

While List of sovereign states is relatively definitive, List of countries is much less so. Proponants of adherence to the latter list often cite it as a featured list, yet they appear not to notice that just three votes aside from the nominator was all it takes for it be one. I have long contended that List of countries almost veers towards being a product of original research, and to have such a list becoming a basis for all other relevant articles in wikipedia clearly requires more community input then a paltry four individuals.--Huaiwei 16:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. The purpose of this template is to enable navigation across a very broad entity—Europe. It becomes somewhat less useful if it doesn't connect the reader to important parts of Europe, and the areas of dispute are arguably more important than their political status might indicate because they are disputed. This is even clearer when the contents of the separated-out template is considered—it would aid navigation between things which are not related except by virtue of their "not-countryness" in Europe, which is not terribly useful. Better to have all this information in one place. — Saxifrage✎ 03:25, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. There are always politics preventing official recognition of some certain sovereign states. It is another question whether any particular of these unrecognised sovereign states would be qualified to be listed (e.g. those almost entirely under domination of Russia or any other foreign sovereign states may not be qualified). — Instantnood 09:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. The folks below who don´t want the unrecognized countries to exist should do something about it. When the unrecognized countries disappear, they will also disappear from Wikipedia, guys. Until then, they stay. - Mauco 20:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Please do not assume every voter in the section below has the same political viewpoint. We do not, and I do not appreciate being asked to do something I do not stand for. Meanwhile, unrecognized countries who "disappear" in real life do not mean they "disappear" from wikipedia. There is such a thing as recorded history.--Huaiwei 15:48, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. Those under foreign occupation but claim to be having nominal independence have no place. Those functioning on their own such as Somalialand do have a place. - Privacy 21:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

If I understand well, you want to exclude from the template teritories like Abkhazia, South Ossetia or Transnistria, which have Russian troops on their soil?--MariusM 16:00, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Correction: In the case of Transnistria, the troops are not just Russians. There are also Moldovans, Transnistrians, and a small number of Ukrainians, as well as OSCE observers. All of them are part of the Joint Control Commission, a body which was formed with Moldova's consent in 1992 in order to perform peacekeeping duties. In the case of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, there are not just Russian troops but also troops from the United Nations and, in S.O., military observers from OSCE. You can not just single out Russia without giving the full picture. Your statements are highly misleading and reveal your anti-Russian bias. Please do not bring more of your personal politics into the encyclopedia, MariusM, and please determine the template content based on objective factors and not on your own personal political preferences and pet peeves. - Mauco 17:37, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I consider your statements misleading, dear Mauco. Please do not bring more of your personal politics into the encyclopedia, and stop pushing your POV in favour of Russian expansionism. Joint Control Commision from Transnistria include some Russian and Moldovan soldiers to check the cease-fire agreement, however there are other Russian troops there which are not part of the JCC and don't have any agreement from Moldovan government. Russian troops should be singled out as only foreign troops which are in the area without consent of international recognized government - same situation in Moldova and Georgia.--MariusM 18:03, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. I am not normally an editor, merely just a reader, so if that disqualifies me, please go ahead and strike my vote. But if not, I humbly submit my 2 Dinars: I read through all the arguments. Several in the this section make sense. In the section below, the one that makes most sense is Tekleni. Still, I am convinced that the right solution is to include them, based on the survey of how the other templates which do it, so why should the Europe template be any different. - 200.35.234.128 03:02, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I was inclined not to delete this vote, due to the sound introduction, but rules are rules. Your comment, however, can stay. Sorry. •NikoSilver• 16:12, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

There are no rules disallowing anons from contributing—perhaps you're thinking of the customs at AfD (which are not rules). This is a straw poll and discussion, not an XfD discussion, and anons may contribute (though are often disregarded). Removing it is neither necessary nor called for. — Saxifrage✎ 21:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I must agree here with Saxifrage - the text you quote is (1) not a policy, (2) it speaks of "elections", which really can only apply to Arbcom elections or, if understood loosely, to formal procedures such as RfAs and perhaps AfDs at most. In a mere strawpoll, like here, I don't see why an anon should be excluded in principle, as long as they are recognisable individuals and not double-voting. Anons can express their opinions in editing, in debating, in consensus-building; if we want to get a consensus here then we need their opinion just like any other's. Fut.Perf.☼ 23:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree as well, in principle, but an anonymous editor with one single edit does make one wonder. At the same time, a non-anonymous editor with one (or just a few) edits makes one wonder just as much, and, in fact, in some instances even more—if one wants to vote stack, wouldn't one create actual sockpuppets to make it look more legitimate? └OzLawyer / talk┐ 23:29, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

This is completely unheard of. I won't violate WP:POINT and log anonymously from all my IPs to show you why. I won't even ask for a WP:RFCU involving this anon and all other 9 legitimate votes here. Have it your way, but I am really dissapointed. •NikoSilver• 10:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, RCU shows that is "possible" that anonimous editor is a sockpuppet of Mauco, is not 100% sure. This is what I told from the begining. "Same geographic area, but different ISPs, as 200.35.234.128 is at Lagunita Mall, likely similar to using an internet cafe" [12]. The anon himself was not very sure if his vote can count. I believe we should not accept votes from anons. I saw a vote striked in the other camp, on sockpuppetry accusation, however I didn't saw the proofs of the accusations.--MariusM 16:00, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

If the anon says "strike me", then strike it, but it is certainly not my sockpuppet. The reference to "same geographic area" referred to two IPs that both started with 200.35, but none of them are mine and I am not in that same area. I should, however, point out that MariusM violated the CheckUser rules by misleadingly getting an admin to check me by claiming code "D" which applies only to closed votes (something which is not the case here). But it is not a problem for me, as far as I am concerned, because both the anons, whoever it is, is unrelated to me. So I do not care either way and will not make a big deal out of MariusM and his misleading claims. I will just let it go. - Mauco 17:28, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. Both dependencies and de facto states should be included. They could be in a separate section in the template, but they are a reality. Listing the de facto countries in this template doesn't mean that Wikipedia recognizes these countries, but they are a reality. ElectionworldTalk? 15:38, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I fail to comprehend how a comment like "de facto countries...are a reality" could be considered politically nuetral. May I also remind, that a template may be merely a template, but to the general viewer, he may not take it in his stride in the same nonchalant manner.--Huaiwei 16:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

It is neutral: Nagorno Karabakh is a fact, even if you do not agree with the existence of that de facto country. That's why it is a de facto country. ElectionworldTalk? 22:24, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. Neutrally describe the situation. The same should go for Somaliland and Western Sahara in Africa, Taiwan in Asia, and so on. —Nightstallion(?) 15:45, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. The template is a tool for easy navigation in geography, not for political struggle. `'mikkanarxi 03:42, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

If is only a geographical template, why you support to add secessionist teritories, which are not defined through geographical terms, but through political term?--MariusM 14:44, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

"Unrecognised states" should be listed separately from this template

Indicate your support below.

# Strong Support I want all these criminal regions to be listed separately from the above list. I haven't seen a democratic separatis state yet! Have you? No. Why??????? Because they are all criminal states. Most of them from Europe are sponspored from Russia, Russia hates Europe and want to destroy EU.--AGNLDM 16:28, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
(banned user Bonaparte) Khoikhoi 03:47, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Lack of democracy is not a valid argument. If so, vast numbers of UN members would have to be removed from templates all over Wikipedia. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 16:35, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

It is very hard to accept some ideas of AGNLDM .Include a little bit Russian paranoya. Russia also is a European Country, and mostly accept European values. Democracy; Seperatism himself motivated by democracy needs.(no other way).It is enough to see the governmental/social structures of these countries(for example; South Ossetia, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mustafa Akalp (talk • contribs)

Support listing Unrecognised states gives them credibility and may inflame readers. Keep them in their own template.--Caligvla 04:31, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia writes on the facts. If the facts inflame people that is entirely irrelevant. That including an unrecognized country as as unrecognized country gives credibility (do you mean legitimacy?) to that country is a hollow argument. If we listed them with recognized countries without drawing the distinction that might be the case. This is not what is being proposed, however. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 16:06, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Support - first, because listing unrecognized entites is controversial, as they are not recognized as sovereign states and do not have a UN seat; second, it makes the template too big.--Aldux 14:51, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I hate to comment on every oppose (you should be supporting this option, actually), but I feel I have to. The existence of the countries is not controversial—they do exist. Making the idea of UN recognition the criteria for "existence" is the controversial thing to do. If a country is sovereign, it is, well, sovereign (sovereignty is not recognition, it is having control over one's own affairs without being responsible to a higher authority). └OzLawyer / talk┐ 16:06, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am forced to agree with the lawyer. The arbitrary criteria for UN recognition is not a concept in international law. But that whole discussion is not for us to decide. It should be handled on the lists that include the unrecognized countries as unrecognized. We are only a template and should abide by what these lists include. Standards, folks. - Pernambuco 16:11, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, since we started a nice debate here over at Aldux's vote, may I also add my two drachmae: I think you are both wrong. Sovereignty is a very controversial thing to define. Some of these are puppet states and claim sovereignty, while it is absolutely clear, that had they not got the support of another bigger, recognized and therefore 'actually' sovereign state (or more sovereign if you like), then they would simply not exist. So there goes your quote about "having control over one's own affairs without being responsible to a higher authority". That other authority is the master puppeteer. On the other hand, UN recognition is absolute. You either have it, or you don't. So that leads me to vote:

The most commonly cited example, the Republic of China, otherwise commonly known as Taiwan, although not in Europe, continues to have official diplomatic relations with 24 States, including the Holy See, and maintains de facto diplomatic ties with many many States, even though its seat at the United Nations was assumed by the People's Republic of China. It is therefore academically and theoretically a sovereign State, although politically sensitive. United Nations membership was in its long history not restricted to States, however. (British) India, the Philippine Commonwealth, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic were members as early as 1945. Switzerland was not a member until 2000, and Niue and the Cook Islands have yet to apply for membership, even though they are having diplomatic relations to a certain degree on their own, and participate individually such as WHO and Kyoto Protocol, which are opened only to sovereign States. - Privacy 22:03, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

You said it yourself: ROC is recognized ny 24 other countries, therefore it can safely be regarded as the only exception that confirms the rule. All the rest is totally unrelated, as it doesn't affect anything in the UN recognition criterion. As for the rest, don't include them either. •NikoSilver• 02:39, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Strong Support Per my above comment in Aldux's vote. And BTW, should the other option pass, I demand that you list that 'sovereign' (as per January 1, 2005) Kingdom of Lovely too. The more I discuss this, the more I am convinced that it is WP:OR to include those selective entities in the template. Britannica, Columbia, Encarta and the UN don't. See comments and links below. •NikoSilver• 16:11, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Pardon me, but do you actually think that Lovely is sovereign? Most of these unrecognized countries have fought wars (you know, those things with guns and death) for control of their territories. I hardly think some guy's apartment is anything even remotely similar. If so, then my basement is now sovereign because "I declare my basement sovereign!" └OzLawyer / talk┐ 00:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Osgoodlawyer has an excellent point. I fully agree with him. I just want to add to everyone: Please do not turn this into a political discussion, or vote based on your own personal political preferences. The "political" aspect should be discussed on the lists that include these places under the heading of 'Unrecognized countries' and not here. We are merely a template. That is something technical, and we are trying to make the template as useful and functional as possible. There is no POV inherent in any of our decisions, or at least there should not be. - Pernambuco 01:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Excellent point? That was my point! I am saying that 'sovereignity' is subjective, while 'recognition' is absolute. That guy's appartment, your basement, and some of those "states" have one absolute thing in common: non-recognition by the UN! Wars (you know, the ones with airplanes, cannons and nukes) are, again, subjective. We won't be able to draw a line, unless we accept a higher authority, and that higher authority to my... biased view is the UN. I'd also like to comment that I really don't like this badgering to every single vote in this section. •NikoSilver• 02:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Support For 2 reasons: 1. This reason has been covered by Aldux's (and Niko's) comments. 2. Listing them here, even as unrecognised states, seems like we are adopting their POV, instead of the legitimate, encyclopedic (Britannica and others do that), and according to the international laws POV, that these entities are part of another state. It would be strange for Wikipedia to take sides, from the very moment our aim has to be the neutral point of view. Hectorian 21:54, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Ignoring the existence of something which clearly exists is taking a non-neutral point of view. Nobody is claiming that these things should exist by including them in the list, simply that they do exist. All the arguments so far for keeping the unrecognized countries off the list have been completely irrelevant. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 00:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I take it your basement doesn't exist either huh? •NikoSilver• 02:30, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Please, Hectorian: Before we throw words like "according to international law" around, how sure are we even of this? And is it up to us, in a template, to rule on international law? Should we not best leave that to the specialists, or at least to those folks who edit the List of countries and List of sovereign states lists? We get onto very thin ice if we begin to include or exclude countries here, by ourselves, on the basis of one editor's personal interpretation of international law. I was participating on another Talk page a couple of weeks ago where someone pointed out the Montevideo Convention. According to that, all of these unrecognized countries are countries and full subjects under international law. They just do not have diplomatic relations. - Pernambuco 01:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see. You mean including his basement. •NikoSilver• 02:30, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

To Osgoodelawyer: The template is for 'Countries of Europe', not 'Pseudo-countries of Europe'... The sovereign countries listed here have full control of their area and affairs, and their status is disputed by none! the unrecognised states (which some want to include) have only a minority of country-like characteristics and their status is under full dispute. let me give some examples: listing Abhazia, Transnistria or TRNC in this template makes the readers think that these states are fully and (somewhat) rightfully sovereign. Thats the one POV... The other POV suggests that these areas are under Russian (2 first) and Turkish (last) control. for everyone that has a basic knowledge of the history and the internal affairs of these countries, will understand that the second of what i've just said is the case... e.g. Who would ever name as "sovereign state" an entity whose 1/4 of the whole population is foreign troops? I think we should better keep the template simple, with no disputes. under the pretext of 'unrecognised countries', later we can also add self-proclaimed states (Sealand) or seccesionist movements limited to a couple of "basements" (literary speaking this time), such as Northern Ireland or Euskadi or Corsica... not to mention 'governments in exile', in Europe and elsewhere. Keep it simple, with the least disputes possible (id est: exclude anything that is unrecognised). To Pernambuco: International law, in the sense that is in use at the moment. If we begin to dispute this, we will open an unpredictable can of worms which will lead to a chaos. I had no idea about the Montevideo Convention that u mentioned before, and it was nice reading another point of view... However, i could also point out, that under such pretexts, many other states could be excluded as well. For example, we all know that when treaties are violated, they stop being in force (when Nazi Germany invaded USSR, the 'treaty of friendship' between the two countries was violated, so, USSR was not obliged to be "friendly" to Germany). the Treaty of Lausanne has been violated by Turkey a gazillion times! this treaty was the founding treaty of the Republic of Turkey... Should i ask its exclusion from the template? It's better not to stretch or shorthen the international laws according to someones pov, as another Procrustes... Better stay honest on what the widely and universally accepted international laws mean. Regards Hectorian 03:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

What about those like Somaliland, which doesn't have foreign control like the three (Abkhazia, Transnistria and the TRNC) you have mentioned? Where should a line be drawn? — Instantnood 09:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. Is important for an encyclopedia to stick at factual accuracy. We should not mix apples with oranges. Territories with unclear status should be listed separatelly than recognised states (members of UN). We should not even use the word "states" or "countries" to describe such cases. "Disputed regions" or "Disputed territories" should be a NPOV description.--MariusM 11:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. I understand fully views by the other camp who say all possible entities should be added for ease of navigation and to present a fully "inclusive" template as a sign of NPOV. However, I disagree. Including all relevant entries is actually one extreme compared to the other extreme, which is to remove the template altogether. By including or excluding entries based on a third-party course like that of the United Nations, however, we effectively become less NPOV by virtue of having based our content on external sources (which dosent contravene WP:OR), and riding on an instution which is at least generally considered more NPOV then most others even in the non-wikipedian world. Fears of readers interpreting these templates as an endorsement of political views concerning unrecognised entities is not unfounded, having personally witnessed how individuals attempting to highlight the autonomous status of various political entities ended up taking the position of including every other non-independent entity just to make a point, and causing numerous edit wars. Apparantly not many are taking these templates lightly, irrespective of their intended purpose.--Huaiwei 16:09, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for recognising the opposite arguments, it does make your opinion sound more considered. I wanted to take up this point about the UN, though. How is taking the "side" of the UN unbiased or more neutral? Certainly it is a considerable authority on the subject of international politics, but aren't we then picking one POV on nationhood over many others? I don't disagree with basing our decision on outside authorities (plural), but doing so based on one authority (singular) among many seems like picking favourites to me and isn't really in line with our goal of being neutral. — Saxifrage✎ 20:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The only thing that UN recognition does is that it moves an unrecognized country from an unrecognized country category and into the recognized country category. Until that happens, they are still unrecognized countries. We list them under that heading because this is what they are, and that is that. It is interesting to see posters who vote for the ´Remove´ option because they are fanatically opposed to the very existing of these places (like MariusM, above, who tried to change their status in the List of countries and got rebuked and reverted by other editors). The vote is clearly on political grounds, as if Wikipedia was some kind of world governing body or mini-U.N., but it is not, so keep politics out of this when you vote. - Mauco 20:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm failing to grasp your point, though perhaps that's because some of your comment seems not to be directed at me. Besides, you're missing my point entirely. I'm not asking what UN recognition does, I'm asking why we should treat the UN as being right and all other sources as wrong. I'm not opposed to doing this for political or whatever reasons, but I want to heard a good reason before I'm convinced it's following NPOV as has been argued. — Saxifrage✎ 01:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Support I find the arguments here more convincing. Not including them here, but in a separate template is compliant with WP:NPOV in my opinion. If there are two POVs: A (Transnistria etc are states) and B (Transnistria etc are not states), it is not neutral to pick either A or B. It's neutral to say their status is disputed, and you don't do that by including them in a template which impliedly asserts position A. You put them in a separate template saying that their status could be either A or B.--Tekleni 08:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see where you're going with this. Yes, that's a good point. I deliberately left "unrecognised states" in scare quotes so that this issue you point out would not influence the discussion, but it looks like that was in vain. Just to clarify for me, can you answer a question? Is there a name (like "disputed states" or "disputed territory" or something) under which you would support them being included all in one template with the recognised states (maybe in a template not called Countries of Europe)? You have a valid point, and I want to know if there's common ground. If there's more than just the name being a problem, that should be clarified. — Saxifrage✎ 21:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Support per all above. Also, the Europe template should make no mention of the template for unrecognised states or have a link to them at all. Dagnabit 16:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

How would that aid navigation? It's a navigation template. — Saxifrage✎ 22:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

It's a navigation template for countries, not for unrecognized countries. Adding unregognized countires just seems to be POV pushing. "We're not really countries, but we'd like to maintain that illusion by piggybacking on the real countires." Dagnabit 08:27, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

No, it's a navigation template for Europe. Re-read what I wrote in the preamble to this poll: the name of the template is not fixed (and was recently changed from simply {{Europe}}, notice), so what I'm trying to do with this poll is see if there's consensus to have this collection of entities together, not whether they should be together in a template of a particular name. The template can easily be moved again. — Saxifrage✎ 20:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. My short reason is that since both Aldux and NicoSilver support it (read their comments), then there must be something in it. Politis 16:15, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I always say it's better to let other people do your thinking for you. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 17:20, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I am sensing sarcasm? Does everyone think for themselves? Many people don't. Take the Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia Theorem for example - I just accept it as it is as a fact without trying to justfy (or prove) it.--Tekleni 17:26, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course you're sensing sarcasm. This is not complex mathematics which we might not be able to understand without years and years of study, Tekleni. It's an issue that if you're reading this thread you're able to form your own reasoned opinion about. If you're not going to actually think about the issue and decide based on the perceived merits for and against a proposition, please don't bother commenting—your "vote" isn't worth the electrons it's made of. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 17:33, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I am thinking (low hum of thinking valves activated) and this is what I am thinking, Wikipedia is all about sourcing your edits. In this case, why add to the list of digital words when you can refer to comments that might reflect one's opinion? As it happens, the 'support' comments seem to cover me. Politis 15:27, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's something different from what you said above. You were saying you agreed with this proposition because Aldux and NikoSilver supported it—as though it must be right because people whose judgment you seem to trust think it's right (as though they couldn't possibly be wrong). └OzLawyer / talk┐ 15:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you really are a lawyer ;-). But, m'lud, in the original entry, I actually recommended readers to 'read their comments'; the implication of this recommendation is quite clear: I agreed with what I had read rather than automatically agreeing with the editors. Ergo, it is not the authors that influenced my voting, on the contrary, it was reading comments that, overall, concurred with my views at the time of my vote. Politis 17:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

All this is really useless argument, but since I like to argue, I'm going to continue: While I do note that you made a "read their comments" comment, I do not think that that was enough to remove the feeling that you were bowing to the decision of the two mentioned editors as correct simply because you trust their judgement. The fact that it came after a comment that was so lackey-like in its wording makes it seem you were simply saying "I agree with those guys, since they're always right, so if you want to see whatever it is I'm apparently agreeing with, read what they said." If I were to agree with someone else's arguments, not the person himself, I would simply have said something like "I agree with the reasoning of X." └OzLawyer / talk┐ 17:40, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, as you rightly point out, things may 'seem' one way and, thereby, generate a 'feeling', but subsequent clarifications dispell any lingering doubts generated by a perceived lapsus linguae. But I think any more word and we may be afflicted by a case of ignotum per ignotius. Politis 18:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

One last comment: Of course, that requires that one believe the further explanation to be true. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 18:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. Unrecognized states are not legally states according to international law. You can list them as seperate entities and territories, but not along with states.--Yannismarou 19:38, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

But that's the thing—they will be listed separately from recognized countries (under their own section, just like the dependent territories will have their own section), simply on the same template to aid navigation. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 19:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

See this version for what it looked like before all the trouble occurred (also note it was simple called "Europe" not "Countries of Europe") at the time. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 19:52, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I know the template. I had already seen it months ago! And I was bitterly surprised when I saw it. And you know why? Because even if you mention it seperately, the fact that you place it in the same template, offers to these territories etc. a legitimacy they do not have. Create a seperate template - I do not care. But don't put them in a same template with legal states. And by the way, I do not like this template for one more reason: it is too big!--Yannismarou 19:59, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

BTW, while I don't think legality of a state is important for the purposes of this template (actuality is important), I have seen no compelling argument that these are not legally states according to international law. There are many very complex issues to be taken into consideration when determining legality, issues that I don't think any of us are qualified to speak about. It is most certainly not as simple as recognition by the United Nations. The United Nations is not the sole voice in international law. That said, they are being looked at by Wikipedia, at least so far, as not being legally states, and I can live with that. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 21:06, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Support. Per all above. We should have a separate template for all these entities. It would be equally easily navigable.--Kober 16:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Do you propose that if there are separate templates that they can be placed on all the articles? I mean, if we can put both (or all three, if dependencies have their own template) templates on each article (that is, Nagorno-Karabakh and France both get the "countries" and the "whatevers" templates), then there is no argument from me (since the purpose of being able to navigate between both types of objects is still there)--although then the argument is why two templates if they're used everywhere—you could just join them together, but have separate sections to differentiate between the types of entities. But I think those proposing that there be separate templates want to keep the template of "whatevers" off the recognized country articles, which means there isn't ease of navigation. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 16:17, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

General discussion or objections of any kind to the poll below please.

I have to note that some people are voting based on politics, and that reasons based on politics carry no weight. We're not censored for minors or adults who can't control their passions, political or otherwise. We're also not in the business of legitimising or controlling reality, just documenting it. We cannot make this template reflect what we wish were true about Europe, so arguments about how Wikipedia affect their credibility are non-starters. Similarly, we don't discriminate based on criminality or no—if we did, there would be a huge war over whether to remove United States from various templates according to the current disputes over the legitimacy of that country's actions. Besides that, Wikipedia does list criminals in templates where they belong, regardless of their criminality. — Saxifrage✎ 18:25, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

To everyone who's arguing this issue based on whether these things are countries (practically all the people arguing for non-inclusion): This is not the issue. The question is whether unrecognized countries as already defined on Wikipedia, by those who who know more about the issue than we do should be included. There is no problem with the definition because it has already been done. Not only is there no problem with the definition, but arguments that it is subjective and that there will be questions about whether an entity should be included or not simply don't hold. First, as already stated, the entity class has already been defined, and second, even if it wasn't, it's not that difficult to do. There isn't a spectrum of entities from Kingdom of Lovely to Transnistria. There are those entities like Kingdom of Lovely, and there are those entities like Transnistria. There aren't entities in between that we will have to argue about whether or not they belong. We're basically including, as have people elsewhere on Wikipedia, those entities which are de facto independent. In closing, this is a template. It is not about defining things, simply about including them. The only issue here is whether these entities should be included on the template--not whether they exist, why they exist, what they're called, if they should be recognized, if they're criminal, if they should be admitted to the UN, or any other issue. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 13:15, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

There are those entities like Kingdom of Lovely, and there are those entities like Transnistria... There are those entities like Transnistria and those like Italy. This template is for the countries of Europe. Countries generally accepted and been defined as such, can be included there. countries that are not, should be excluded from here (and included somewhere else. since users are asking for the drawing of a line, i know that e.g. Sealand is not like Abhazia. but i also do know that Abhazia is not like Germany. so, IMO only countries like Germany should be included. otherwise, we should include every entity that has even a minority of such characteristics (the Knights of Malta as well, i guess...). Hectorian 17:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, until very recently, this template was called "Europe", not "Countries of Europe", and there was no consensus to move it to "Countries of Europe" that I can see, so the argument that this template is for "countries of Europe" and nothing else, is not a fair one. In addition, you are assuming that "countries generally accepted and been defined as such" don't include these unrecognized countries. Other places on Wikipedia do in fact accept them as countries, and they clearly are countries in reality. Furthermore, Abkhazia is far more like Germany than it is like Sealand. And finally, we've been over this--de facto independent entities (that control territory) are the only ones that would fall under the "unrecognized countries" category, so there is no slippery slope argument against their inclusion. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 20:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

That bit about countries of Europe vs Europe is totally lame. What was the Europe template supposed to have anyway? I still feel there's no definite threshold above which something is considered a 'country'. I find all attempted definitions (fought 'wars', 'sovereign', etc) vague and subjective. I am still for an absolute criterion with complete lack of subjectivity. That objective criterion for me is UN recognition. I am open to consider other definitions, but my only concern is that they should be beyond debate about their objectivity. •NikoSilver• 20:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

It was supposed to have certain country-like entities of Europe. Basically, it had those entities which can be found on List of countries (which has been thoroughly debated and which has strict criteria) and which are also in Europe. This is why it included dependent territories as well. These will also have to go under such a strict definition as you propose. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 21:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to add: Were there no countries prior to the United Nations (or perhaps the League of Nations)? Recognition by such a body should not be considered the be all and end all of "countryness", since countries existed before it, and if it were dissolved today, there would still be countries tomorrow. Despite a somewhat subjective aspect to what makes a country, it really does need to be looked at that way. As long as we define our criteria well (as has already been done elsewhere), then there isn't really a problem. Transnistria is de facto independent. The Basque Country is not. See how easily we can avoid the slippery slope? └OzLawyer / talk┐ 21:41, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

After speaking to a number of people including the leaders of Sealand and Dennis Hope, who claims to own the moon, Danny declared his flat to be a sovereign nation on 1 January2005 and he set about populating the micronation and recording the television series.

Are we? Those 'self-declared' sovereign entities are far from a country, and the only absolute line we can draw is the UN recognition. UN pre-dates (and we can't say if it will not out-date) WP, so thankfully we don't need to respond to hypothetical questions. •NikoSilver• 22:09, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Those self-declared sovereign entities are not sovereign. I am absolutely certain that King Danny's flat has no de facto independence. I'm sure Danny pays his UK taxes, including property taxes (that is, assuming he owns his flat, and if he doesn't, then he pays his rent). In addition, the laws of the UK fully apply to his flat. I am certain that if Danny's friend Alpha were to murder Danny's friend Beta in Danny's flat, Danny would be fully compliant with the UK authorities in allowing them into his flat for all legal purposes. Danny's flat is no more an independent country than any other person's flat. The only difference is he has made an empty declaration of independence. As I noted in discussion above (prior to the straw poll), micronations are not de facto independent, and they would not be included in the list. We already have criteria on what is and isn't an unrecognized country being used on Wikipedia, and micronations, which are little more than intellectual exercises, clearly do not qualify. There is nothing to stop the UK from taking over Danny's flat if the UK felt that it was actually a threat to its own sovereignty. It does not, and so does not bother--it is just a bit of fun. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 23:23, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

De facto sovereignty is tricky and we all know that. Some of these puppet "countries" need to pay some form of respect to their puppeteers; either if that is taxes/rent/judicial, or political/economical/military dependence, the point is we can't involve ourselves in these "intellectual exercises" for separating and evaluating all those criteria. We are only supposed to report what we see. And we see two things clearly distinguished: bonafide countries recognized by the UN, and puppet-states/flats/basements. I am sorry, I also checked Britannica, and saw that all those "countries" you want added, are briefly mentioned within the articles of their de jure UN-recognized nations. My opinion still stands. •NikoSilver• 00:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The UN Observer Mission in Georgia: [13] making it clear that South Ossetia and Transnistria, at least, have de facto presidents, so clearly have to be de facto independent. It's not really original research, either, since we're simply applying criteria to entities for a list. Having any list requires criteria to be determined and applied. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 02:48, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, UN doesn't list those in countries, Britannica neither. Danny is also the King, and I just self-declared my attic independent. I am the de-facto prime-minister. :-) Fun aside, other online encyclopedias' stances in listing e.g. TRNC should put you in thoughts:

Britannicadoesn't have a separate article (search), but rather includes it as a sub-section in the article for the Republic of Cyprus. i.e. it has the following tree: Cyprus > History > The Republic of Cyprus > Establishment of an independent Turkish state (notice the name of the sub-section and its position under The Republic of Cyprus!)

Columbia, doesn't have a separate article for TRNC (search), but includes a reference within the text of the article for Cyprus. •NikoSilver• 01:09, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry you feel those are POV sources... •NikoSilver• 01:09, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

And if we just do the same things that Britcolarta do, we can declare the project finished and all go home. So what if other encyclopedias don't have separate articles? Are you arguing that Transnitria should be merged into Republic of Moldova? If not, separateness of articles has nothing to do with it. In fact, your argument could be taken the opposite way you'd like it to be: since we here at Wikipedia have decided to have separate articles, then we should list them. — Saxifrage✎ 03:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Niko, the UN doesn't list the countries for political reasons (UN members Georgia, Moldova, and Azerbaijan would kick up quite a fuss if it recognized these countries). The fact that departments of the UN show that they understand that they're countries through their actions and reporting (without exactly saying that they are) shows you that they're countries. The UN, in not calling them countries is the organization with the POV. We, on the other hand, are supposed to show you the facts as they are. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 12:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Your responses fail to address the issue. WP is supposed to list things in an WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR way. I have seen no list of countries anywhere else (Britcolarta and UN included) that includes those "countries", and I consider those sources highly WP:INDY, WP:V and WP:RS. So my response to you is stop this poll as moot, or provide sources that explicitly differentiate the status of these "countries" with e.g. Kingdom of Lovely, and equate it with e.g. France. •NikoSilver• 13:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I can't provide you with lists, but I'm sure we can cull together enough evidence from proper sources that these countries (entities, disputed territories, or thingamabobs) are not controlled by the countries which, according to the United Nations, they are a part of. Then we can set up the template as "Countries, Dependent Territories, and Thingamabobs". But, honestly, your problem should not be with this template. It should be with the statements made on the articles in question themselves. A template is supposed to follow the lead of the articles—it's the articles that you really have a problem with. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 13:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Providing me with all that, plus your comment about "intellectual excersises", are the definition of WP:OR. No. I, Britannica, Columbia, Encarta, and the UN, don't want them listed. Unless you want to add all others too, for which you apply another WP:OR definition of threshold. •NikoSilver• 16:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Really? I thought gathering credible published evidence was research, not original research. So long as we don't synthesize a new term and proclaim it to be official, we're simply displaying the information as it comes from the credible sources (if the sources call South Ossetia, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia "disputed regions", then we can safely call them that and include them). As for Lovely, it's not a threshold issue. A micronation is nothing to this issue—it never has been, never will be. To pretend it is and use that as something to stall actual resolution of the real issue is underhanded. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 16:41, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Will this article from the East European Constitutional Review, published by the New York University School of Law and the Central European University, discussing all four entities mentioned above, help? └OzLawyer / talk┐ 16:55, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

You see, that is the problem. Where it stops being a WP:OR issue if we exclude Lovely, it starts being a WP:OR issue that we include those with the rest. This is an OR segmentation of political entities. It combines in a list, two apparently unequal and unidentical kinds of entities, while it excludes a third kind, based on OR criteria. Why did you choose to list A and B without C? Why not list A and C for instance? Why not list A alone and B and C separately? The criteria for responding to this question are not to be decided by us. Thankfully, others have done these intellecual excercises before us. All nations' highest authority (the UN), and all other online encyclopedias have agreed that the proper way of listing is A alone and B and C separately. •NikoSilver• 21:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

This is not a list, it is a navigation aid for our readers. Are they in Europe, are significant country-like-things, and we have articles about them? Then we should provide navigation to them. I don't really care what they're called, we could call them "illegitimate territories that claim to be states" for all I care, but we do a disservice to readers if we hide the contents of our encyclopedia. — Saxifrage✎ 22:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The UN has made no decision on what to include in a list of countries. The UN has decided what it will recognize as countries for the purposes of the political goings on of the UN. Completely different issues. As for your continued comment about Lovely, honestly, it's getting bothersome. Lovely is a fantasy. It's no more real in any sense than Lilliput. We don't have to exclude it because there is no reason we should ever possibly have conceive of a reason for including it. It's like considering why we shouldn't include the Monkees as a country in Europe—a complete non sequitur. The Montevideo Convention, which I believe you mentioned earlier that you never heard of, is actually a very well-known set of criteria, and I would have no qualms with using it to determine what states should and should not be included on this template (with the caveat that we should include dependent territories as well). If you'll read that article again, you'll see that it is generally considered to be a statement of already existing international customary law principles—that is, it is not prescriptive, but descriptive. If you insist, we can even make a note that the entities on the template are entities as determined by applying the Montevideo Convention. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 23:21, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

No you've mistaken me for Hectorian. Montevideo's four criteria were exactly on my mind when I presented Kingdom of Lovely as an example. Read the article (Lovely), it covers all four. I am not trying to be a pest here, and I understand that navigation would be facilitated. Why shouldn't we facilitate navigation to Lovely and Sealand too then? And why isn't navigation facilitated through the legitimate countries articles? I can't imagine a whole croud wanting to navigate to those countries. I strongly believe that their inclusion is an internationally and academically unaccepted POV, and I am opposing it. I am also opposing the twisted notability they get from all those efforts on the pretence of NPOV. My view is that these entities should be reached through their de jure articles, via a navigation pane on the side that would include all {{main}}ed out sub-articles, including those de facto entities. Will you please open your mind and think about that proposal per the example of Britannica? •NikoSilver• 01:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

No, sorry, just can not "open my mind" enough to consider any micronation (like Lovely) a country. But the ones that are on the list currently are there because they can empirically be considered countries under international law. There is such a thing as intent in law, and also in international law of course, at least when conventions and treaties are concerned. For one thing, the framers of Montevideo Convention identified population and territory as basic characteristics of a country, so it is easy to go back and imagine: What did they have in mind? For starters, more than a one bedroom apartment's worth of territory with two or three inhabitants on it. They also specifically stated that recognition by other countries was not a requirement for statehood, I just checked that, and it is in article 3, and this convention is still in force, it has been signed and ratified by the United States and by lots of other countries. But you are in the wrong place for that kind of a discussion, this is just a template and we have to follow the standards and norms of the rest of Wikipedia. In fact, these issues have already been worked out by the editors of List of countries and that is where you should go if you want to change the status quo. - Pernambuco 02:40, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

How is that not saying that Wikipedia should take sides? Allowing navigation only through the de jure entities would be tantamount to taking the position that they are not states. I realise Wikipedia can't take the position that they are states and I don't think it should, but neither should Wikipedia take the position that they aren't states. Britannica offers us no guidance: they do not run by consensus and don't need an NPOV policy because of that. They can use personal editorial judgement because they need not reconcile a multitude of views. — Saxifrage✎ 02:45, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

You both got my comment wrong. I didn't connect Lovely to openmindedness; I connected the proposed structure. It seems that academic and international consensus suggests that disputed regions should be treated as part of their de jure nations. To be exact, Britannica has a structure like Cyprus > History > The Republic of Cyprus > Establishment of an independent Turkish state (notice the name of the sub-section and its position under The Republic of Cyprus!). The same goes for Encarta and Columbia (and don't forget: the UN). The fact that WP has article size limitations and needs separate {{main}}ed out articles, doesn't mean that those articles could stand on their own. According to WP:NPOV#Undue weight, these POVs should be given the preminence they have proportionally to the academic and international consensus. It is absolutely clear for these cases, that this consensus suggests that these entities are treated as part of the general de jure idea. Now this is NPOV, and this is due weight. My proposal is for a similar structure (per WP:SS#Avoidance of POV forks and WP:POVFORK#Article spinouts - "Summary style" articles) for all such cases in the likes of this sidebar: Template:WPHOG Sidebar. Remember: we cannot decide (no matter how many polls we do) things on our own! If there is clear academic and international consensus, then WP cannot throw a poll and decide its own path. The proposed structure is already decided by independent, verifiable and reliable sources, (again, don't forget the UN) and no poll whatsoever can twist this (per WP:CON and Wikipedia:Voting is evil). •NikoSilver• 10:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

In response to your argument against even the existence of such articles, I wholly disagree. The articles clearly can stand on their own, and the reason is that there is enough information for such articles, because those subjects are important enough to warrant them (if actual independence movements without territory warrant articles, I think they've got to), and because we are not Britannica! It's not that we're giving these entities more weight than they deserve by giving them articles, it's that Britannica is giving them less weight than they deserve.

As for your comment before about Lovely satisfying the criteria of the Montevideo Convention, I certainly do not agree. Your interpretation of the convention seems to be one which makes the convention useless (if its criteria can encompass micronations then it's of no use in international law for the determination of states). Since the convention actually is considered useful, your interpretation of it must be incorrect.

The reason we don't have this template is because it's not useful, not because it's original research or has a non-neutral point of view. It is not claiming that countries of Europe are the same thing as varieties of apple. A template with recognized countries of Europe and unrecognized countries, disputed territories, or whatever you want to call them, however, is useful. Very useful, in fact. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 14:35, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Niko, what exactly are you wanting me to cite for you? That including these entities in the template will be useful? I hope not. And what, exactly, have you presented with your references to three other encyclopedias and something or other with the UN? The fact that another encyclopedia does not list these entities separately is completely irrelevant to the issue. Those encyclopedias also don't even bother to mention massive numbers of topics that Wikipedia covers. Does this mean we are giving such topic unfair attention which violates the neutral point of view because we have more articles? Are you expecting me to provide an outside source that says "this topic is good for its own article on an encyclopedia," or one that says "this topic is fit for a template that sits on articles of countries in Europe"? That would be a pretty ludicrous thing to require, I think. Also, I'm still not sure what your claim regarding the UN is proving. If you want it to prove that the UN doesn't consider these things countries, no argument there. I thought we were past this, though. The UN, through its actions, its observer missions in the countries these entities are de jure part of, and statements of its sub-organs show that it, in fact, considers these entities very important. Third-party papers on the issue also show their importance (I think a good paper was noted by me above). As I said, I thought we were past this issue and were working on what neutral criteria could be applied to separate the Nagorno-Karabakhs from the Kingdoms of Lovely. Which brings me to the following:

As for "my" interpretation that according to the Montevideo Convention, Lovely is not a country, well, I again disagree that that's original research. I think that it is self-evident from the Montevideo Convention that it does not include micronations (that is, to draw that conclusion entails no originality—it is a direct result of the convention's existence). The fact that the convention is considered to be valid in a world where micronations are not subjects of international law backs this up. It is a re-interpretation, a non-standard interpretation which argues that it includes micronations.

As for POV forks, there are none. There are excess content forks, useful information forks, and "we're not Britannica" forks. I'll bet my life savings (which is actually a negative number, but let's pretend it's not) that Britannica doesn't have an article on, say Rose Theatre, Brampton. It probably has an article on Brampton, Ontario, though. I guess we've POV-forked that article. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 17:14, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Again your response assumes that I want to delete or merge those articles. No! I want to show them as part of the non-disputed entity. See section below. •NikoSilver• 21:55, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

But merging them is exactly what you appear to be proposing below. As for them being part of the disputed entities, nobody is saying that they aren't de jure part of them. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 22:39, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

No Oz, I am not merging them. These (red now) links on the right are separate articles (not headlines within the main one). I am just showing a tree of inter-relatedness in all of them. That structure is common in WP and elsewhere. •NikoSilver• 23:16, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Niko, you cannot claim to know international and academic consensus by citing a mere four sources, all of which are UK or American. Besides, we are here to come to consensus between ourselves, and your trying to speak for people not speaking here is against WP:CONSENSUS. Outside sources do not contribute to consensus, they form part of arguments for other editors to change their mind and so forge a consensus. Your perspective that there is international consensus is your own point of view that is disagreed with here. Thus, there is no consensus here. — Saxifrage✎ 20:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Who do I try and speak for? These sources are independent regarding the particular example disputed region in question. Show me some other independent source for some other example if you wish. See section below for explanation. •NikoSilver• 21:55, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Independent doesn't have anything to do with it. You're trying to claim the power of international consensus behind you and you can't do that. — Saxifrage✎ 22:06, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

As long as I don't see the other POV cited by an independent source, I can't be disputed either. •NikoSilver• 22:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

It is assumed that editors working toward consensus are pursuing a consensus that is consistent with Wikipedia's basic policies and principles - especially the neutral point of view (NPOV). At times, a group of editors may be able to, through persistence, numbers, and organization, overwhelm well-meaning editors and generate what appears to be support for a version of the article that is actually inaccurate, libelous, or not neutral, e.g. giving undue weight to a specific point of view. This is not a consensus.

The bolded part fits like a glove. I have yet to see an independent source that treats those entities as separate from their de jure situation... •NikoSilver• 10:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I can wikilawyer just as well, but that won't help this page at all. Claiming you have consensus and NPOV on your side just doesn't work, because you actually have to have it on your side. When there is consensus on this page, that will be true. Besides, you have been provided with a source above, though perhaps you didn't see it as you haven't responded to that thread since it was provided. — Saxifrage✎ 21:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry you think this one source is compatible with all others I've presented. Be sure I can present 1000s more in a jiffy. Oz himself also posted another in my sub-page calling them playfully non-state states. In any case, There are two contributors here who absolutely have to respond to every single word opposing their views... And none of the two is me. •NikoSilver• 22:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Refrain from commenting on others and save your typing for commenting on the page, per WP:NPA. Insinuations aren't helpful.

In any case, compatibility is irrelevant, or rather, is relevant but in a way that is opposite of your statement. If you'll only accept sources that are compatible with the ones you've already cited, then it's impossible to present a source that doesn't support your point of view. Rather, an incompatible source indicates that there is more than one point of view. Beyond that, whether they are states isn't in dispute. The discussion is about whether these de jure non-states/de facto states should be included in the template. Your sources so far are just restating what's already well-understood and largely irrelevant to this discussion. — Saxifrage✎ 00:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Saxi you know I respect you and your edits. I am just really puzzled that you have not yet understood my POV. I am saying that most WP:INDY, WP:V, WP:RS sources give proportionally very low preminence to these entities. This template IMO gives them more preminence than they deserve, thereby violating WP:NPOV#Undue weight. You may disagree, but you must admit that I have made my case. •NikoSilver• 09:56, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I heard what you're saying, but I'm disputing the evidence you're presenting and the conclusions you're drawing from it. The other encyclopedias' structural organisation of these entities is not a statement, so drawing conclusions from it about what they think about this issue from that is interpretation and synthesis, the definition of original research. The remaining source you cite is the UN, which is a body with a bias and isn't an academic source with standing. They're a political entity with their own agenda and political biases in this issue. I agree with you about what they say, and I agree that it reflects a large portion of the international community's stand on this issue, but it is certainly not neutral. I do take your point about undue weight, but then what is and isn't undue weight is a judgement call. You're making the call that including would be undue weight, and I'm making the call that not including them gives the UN undue weight. I don't know that any more useful discussion will come from this thread, so I'm just going to agree to disagree: we're looking at the same material and disagreeing about what it means. — Saxifrage✎ 00:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough; we agree that we disagree. I too agree to the validity of your interpretation of the sources, while I disagree with your conclusion. Indeed this is a judgement call and further discussion on this thread is not productive. Unless there is anything else that brings more light in this issue, I withdraw from further comments. •NikoSilver• 11:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that Chechen Republic of Ichkeria should be included, but not in this template, in a separate template with all those separatist regimes. Situations are different for case to case. I pointed already that, based on Republic of China (Taiwan) constitution, they are not a separatist regime, but a legitimate government of entire China (like a government in exile), and People Republic of China is the separatist regime which don't obey to the legitimate government! So, we are considering Taiwan a separate country contrary even with Taiwanese constitution! We should consider the example of "Britannica", where separatist regimes without international recognition are not considered countries. When and if they will received recognition we will list them as countries, but until then we should refrain pushing propaganda in Wikipedia. I saw at List of unrecognized countries that somebody tried to change the title in List of unrecognized entities I believe it was a good idea.--MariusM 13:01, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria does not exist. Chechnya is wholly under the control of the Russian government. Once, several years ago, there was partial control by the rebels, but even this was absolutely nothing like a de facto independent state. What's happening in Chechnya is that there is a secessionist movement like many secessionist movements all over the world. As for Northern Ireland, it is an integral part of the United Kingdom. It is no different, legally, from Scotland or Wales, from what I understand. As for Kosovo, it perhaps, in fact, should be included, since it is actually recognized by the United Nations as something (it is being run by the United Nations at the moment, independently from Serbia), and likely will become a recognized nation in the near future). └OzLawyer / talk┐ 14:17, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, Kosovo and other such cases are something. But are not countries. The best description is entities. Some of them will became countries, some will remain only a page in history. In the moment when those changes will appear we will show them in Wikipedia. But not before. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Some of those would-be countries are not de facto independent. For example, Abkhazia and Transnistria are under Russian controll. In Transnistria secessionist government organised a referendum to join Russia. It don't want independence, it want to join Russia. Obviously, Transnistria is not a country, is a disputed teritorry. Same with other examples (don't have time and knowledge to talk about all).--MariusM 16:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

MariusM has his own POV regarding Transnistria, but that is not an excuse to mislead editors who are not aware of the situation in that place. I have to point out the following correction: Transnistria is on the record as seeking recognition as an independent state.See: parliament's foreign policy guidelines. Their independence referendum on Sept 17 was for continued independence and for seeking a free association agreement with the Russian Federation. No other official sources support the erroneous statements by MariusM. - Mauco 16:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

MariusM, I am an entity, as are my province and my city. The region my city is part of is an entity. The school I go to is an entity. "Entity" is a pretty useless term to be using. You will at least have to qualify it with something like "country-like" or "quasi-national". And if you do that, then doesn't it fit in with our list of entities? └OzLawyer / talk┐ 17:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

O.K., if "entities" is to vague, let's call them "secessionist teritories". What about having a List of secessionist territorries with all those regions? In the List of countries we will have recognized countries with a link to the other list, under a "See also" section. This mean keeping factual accuracy and NPOV.--MariusM 11:57, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

The List of countries is not going to change, I assure you of that. We're not discussing that here, though—we're discussing this template. I might agree to a wording of the unrecognized countries that's something like your proposed term, but the "entities" themselves have to be included on the template, not just a link to a page with them listed on it. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 15:39, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposal explained in detail

Britannicadoesn't have a separate article (search), but rather includes it as a sub-section in the article for the Republic of Cyprus. i.e. it has the following tree: Cyprus > History > The Republic of Cyprus > Establishment of an independent Turkish state (notice the name of the sub-section and its position under The Republic of Cyprus!)

Columbia, doesn't have a separate article for TRNC (search), but includes a small reference within the text of the article for Cyprus.

Encarta too. (search) Click the first reference to see that it is a small reference within the Cyprus article.

Explanatory note: The articles above are {{main}}ed out articles of the main article Fictionlandia and this sidebar exists in all sub-articles for easy navigation.

Therefore, both academic and international consensus suggests that disputed regions should be treated as part of their de jure (i.e. legal) nations. The fact that WP has article size limitations and needs separate {{main}}ed out articles, doesn't mean that those articles could stand on their own if the respective mother article did not exist.

This proposal is for a similar structure for all such cases in the likes of the sidebar to the right. Remember: we cannot decide (no matter how many polls we do) things on our own! If there is clear academic and international consensus, then WP cannot throw a poll and decide its own path. The proposed structure is already decided by independent, verifiable and reliable sources, the UN, and the vast majority of all others and no poll whatsoever can twist this (per WP:CON and Wikipedia:Voting is evil).

Caution: This proposal does not aim to delete or merge or otherwise affect the existence of these separate articles. It aims only to show them within a broader set of articles, where the mother article is the non-disputed de jure part. •NikoSilver• 21:34, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a proposal to change editorial standards across the entire project. This is astronomically beyond the scope of this page. Take it to the Village Pump and please don't clog up this page with further discussion of it. — Saxifrage✎ 22:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks and will do in due time. The connection with this page's scope is that the option should be taken into account when voting, because these articles would become groups of articles. Navigation to them directly or through the mother article is still debatable, but the tree-style is still evident. I am going to formulate this proposal further, and invite all interested parties to discuss about it in my own subpage here. •NikoSilver• 22:20, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

A vote on this here is irrelevant because it has no force. If the articles are reorganised in this format, then the template will obviously follow. Go elsewhere for this proposal. — Saxifrage✎ 23:35, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I just said I would. And no, the template still doesn't have to follow, although I'd obviously wish it did. •NikoSilver• 10:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

France (again)

I made the note more explicit. I think it may be slightly confusing to list France as "Partly on another continent". While it may be technically correct (and I'm told thats the best kind of correct), it isn't immediately obvious. Either the note should be changed to make the wording more clear (e.g. to note that this can include islands/overseas territories etc.) or two notes separate notes should be made, one for countries for which the contiguous area spans two continents (e.g. Russia) and one for countries like France with overseas holdings. - Francis Tyers· 00:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the notes should be rewritten so notes only go to countries that are primarily or entirely on another continent (but with socio-political ties to Europe). Then the notes can be pared down, and nothing is really lost. That Greece has some islands close to the coast of Turkey is pretty irrelevant to its existence in Europe. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 17:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

What is significant and what is not? A quarter of half of total area of landmass, or of total population? - Privacy 21:47, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I think population is rather irrelevant, so land mass. No set number, and none is really needed, since there are no close cases. If you agree that countries with tiny island bits don't count, then the hardest case is Georgia, with roughly 1/3 in Asia. If you agree that Georgia gets a note, then we have no problem (unless a new country with 1/4 of its area outside of Europe comes into existence). └OzLawyer / talk┐ 00:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

France exists in more than one continent, to say that it doesn't based on territory size is POV. --Bob 17:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

83,534 km2 is the land mass of French Guyane... This is twice the size of Estonia and 522 times the size of Liechtenstein. I will put in a note referring to France. --Bob 23:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted this, as it seems the consensus above is to NOT add mentions of overseas territories. As an observer, by the way, I'd say that having such a note is confusing. When I see a template that says "Countries of Europe", I assume that it means "countries that have territory within the landmass defined as Europe", not "Countries that are only in Europe, and absolutely nowhere else". That is to say, inclusion here doesn't exclude the possibility of territory elsewhere, which would be adequately documented in the main articles for each nation. --Ckatzchatspy 00:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I see no such consensus on this page, unless 2 v 2 is a consensus, which I don't think it is. 20% of France lies outside of Europe. I think that it is as significant as the others that have a note.

Let's look at them individually:

Azerbaijan: 54% in Asia, 46% in Europe

Georgia: 29% in Asia, 71% in Europe

Kazakhstan: 86% in Asia, 13% in Europe

Russia: 77% in Asia, 23% in Europe

Turkey: 97% in Asia, 3% in Europe

France: 18% outside Europe, 82% within Europe

If we can include those that are almost entirely outside of Europe and have a note, then a country that has a significant portion of its landmass outside should also be denoted. For this reason, Denmark should also have a wee note. --Bob 00:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Showing that France has 11% more land in Europe than Georgia, and nearly twice as much as the next biggest. That said, the note could be altered to note "contiguous landmass" (rather than Islands etc.) - Francis Tyers· 10:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Albania

Someone fix the display so Albania doesn't get its own line, please. └OzLawyer / talk┐ 17:59, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Europe is not the EU or the Council of Europe

So Armenia is in the Council of Europe and Cyprus is in the EU. That's nice, but it has nothing to do with this template. Guess what, Switzerland is in neither, and it is still in Europe. Any number of memberships in organizations with "Europe" in their names will not move coutries that are not geographically part of Europe. Listing Kazakhstan is a joke, and I'm glad someone did that, because it really drives home the point how ludicrous such hair-splitting is in navigation templates. You can discuss the matter to your hearts' content on Transcontinental country, but don't spill the pedantry to template space. dab(𒁳) 10:05, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Armenia and Cyprus have always had close cultural and political ties with Europe, like it or not. Therefore, they shall remain on this template. -- Clevelander 21:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

There's been considerable speaking of admitting Israel in the EU, and about 15-20 years before that France has spoken insistently of expanding the EU to Morocco. This means that if they enter in the EU Morocco and Israel will become European countries? Come on, be serious... As for "cultural ties", Australia and Canada have ties that are probably even stronger than those of Armenia.--Aldux 21:38, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

That's great but neither Australia nor Canada are as close geographically or historically to Europe as Armenia and Cyprus are. Also keep in mind that the "border" between Europe and Asia is completely arbitrary. -- Clevelander 21:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Fortunately, it will be December the 20th in Coordinated Universal Time soon and thus, I can make at least three additional reverts, if need be. -- Clevelander 22:00, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a curiosity: do you really think that by edit-warring you will be able to force through your point?--Aldux 22:15, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

No, actually. In fact, if I think it would probably be irrational of me if I made any further reverts in the next few hours (regardless of if I did them on the 19th or 20th). I'm just trying to bring this issue to the table. -- Clevelander 22:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Sure it won't. I think Clevelander has a point though. It's been here for ages. Furthermore, I refer you to these quotes:

However, numerous geographers consider Azerbaijan's and Armenia's southern border with Iran and Turkey's southern and eastern border with Syria, Iraq and Iran as the boundary between Asia and Europe because of political and cultural reasons. from Europe#Geography and extent and Geography of Europe.

I won't comment on Cyprus being an island in the Med part of EU, but I think it is obvious that someone here started the WP:LAMEst debate I've ever seen! To conclude, there's no single definition for Europe, so we'll have to accept that some countries will belong in more than one templates. I won't revert, though. Aldux, care to do the honors? NikoSilver 22:38, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Niko, no chance ;-) You see, "numerous geographers" is an example of rare perfection of weasel words. The single opinion of an isolated geographer is hardly relevant; what can't be doubted is that all geography schoolbooks place Armenia in Asia. This template should reflect general consensus; we've always got the articles for the minority views.--Aldux 22:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, if that's your decision, then I guess we must have another poll to cancel the consensus of the first one. Check:

In the meantime, I guess it would be wise to revert to the consented version (since there are maybe a dozen related templates that will be inconsistent, check Template:Europefooter for some of them). A very good case needs to be built for a very trivial issue. Not to mention the work that has to be carried out afterwards if the result changes. Are you sure you're up to this? NikoSilver 23:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, no consensus has as yet been found on Armenia, as exactly that link showes - for this the poll is still open, the only one to be open with Kazakhistan. If I was the only one to support this version I would have no problem making Armenians happy, as the issue is, I admit, quite lame, and there are few things I hate more than lame issues (even if I end always involved in them, as you know well Niko ;-)).--Aldux 23:27, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I have reverted to the consented version since Aldux was obviously logged out. Sorry, but such changes have huge collateral work that needs to be carried out simultaneously. If we consent to excluding several countries in a proper way (not just the four of us I mean) then I'll try to help do this right in all related templates. Please check my previous post for details. NikoSilver 23:29, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Ooops! Sorry Al, I checked your contribs and thought you had stopped for the night! Indeed, both you and me end up in these lame disputes! :-) If it's still open, can I vote? (that'll be the longest lasting poll I've ever seen!) I hate reverting. Especially friends! :-) NikoSilver 23:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I'm afraid you're a better person than me - as you know quite well, I'm not so nice ;-) Anyways, I would really find myself foolish in starting an edit-war for such an issue. I'll only remove the dependant territories, that there seems to be an agreement among most editors of keeping out.--Aldux 23:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Plus we already have a seperate template for the autonomous and dependent territories. I say, ultimately, however, we place Armenia on this template (60% of Wikipedians who voted in the poll agree that it should be - if that isn't a concensus, I don't know what is). -- Clevelander 23:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

In fact, I agree that Cyprus and Armenia are not geographically part of Europe. What close ties? Their cultures are typical Near Eastern culture! Even their Christianity is the remnants of Near Eastern Christianity that existed before Islamic conquest.Baristarim 00:05, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we should remove both Armenia and Cyprus or to include other countries that have socio-political connections with Europe. Anyway I think Kazakhstan should be included as a trans-continential country (if to include Turkey which also has its capital in Asia).--Planemo 01:26, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Turkey however has territory in Europe and, Istanbul, a city of 13 million is primarily in the European side. Kazakhstan is not a transcontinental country! I am sure that we all had a similar education in high school geography about continents on where the borders are drawn. Why don't we also include Israel in that case? It plays in the UEFA and not the Asian Confederation. We can also include Canada because it also belongs to the British Crown, along with Australia and NZ for the same reason. They have much stronger connections to "Europe" than Cyprus and Armenia or Kazakhstan. Not to mention the entire South American continent. How about Lebanon? The list goes and on and on..Baristarim 01:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Kazakhstan also has cities in Europe just as Turkey does. This is not the case of Armenia or Cyprus.--Planemo 01:57, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I actually did some research and I think that you might be right about this one.. I will try to see what else I can pick up..Baristarim 03:19, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I hope the Greeks are spluttering in their Ouzo! For that very UNEP map has "Macedonia" sans disambiguation! The horrible outrage, I anticipate demonstrations and strongly worded letters. - Francis Tyers· 11:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no such thing as geographical Europe, never has been. It's a social construct. How can you scientifically describe Europe? You can't. Tectonic plates? NO! Only Armenia and Cyprus can be included from the periphery because the natives see themselves as Europeans and ALL European countries cosnider them European as well. Socio-political connections are not the basis at all.--Eupator 16:20, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

In any case top100golfcourses.co.uk's map is not enough proof.. Oh ok then.. If it is a social construct, can you share to explain me what it is? What kind of a social construct are we talking about? Armenians would have considered themselves as Africans if Africa were richer. Hey, don't get me wrong, I am sure Turkey would be also insisting on how African it is blah blah.. See what I mean? The social construct? What is it based on? Religion? Hope that the French revolutionaries didn't hear that! Democracy? Then why the hell on earth Vatican is included in there? Vatican is a papal dictatorship with no elections. Why not include Canada? Canada has much more connections at every level with the "European culture" then Armenia, Turkey, Bosnia, Albania or Cyprus does! And not just culture, but socially and ideologically as well. Why not include Australia for the same reason? What all European countries? Then you can go mention in the Armenia article "(Armenia is considered a European country by other European states). Where is the proof that it is considered "European" by other European states? Israel is also a member of the UEFA! Don't forget that it is not the politicians that decide the geographical borders. Baristarim 12:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree actually.. I have seen too many times editors arguing about this in a wide range of articles, even in ones about 4th century princedoms! Many modern georgraphers refer to Eurasia more frequently in any case.. In fact, I wll go ahead and create that template (if it doesnt exist) and replace the others. I am a bit busy, but I will do it later today. Baristarim 12:15, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Standardization suggestion - please contribute!

A suggestion for a standard approach to the naming, titling and sections of this and similar templates has been made here – please visit and share your thoughts! Thanks, David Kernow(talk) 03:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

United Kingdom

England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland should not be seperately listed, even in brackets. I would remove them myself, but the page is protected... 90.240.150.96 22:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, it's quite common and correct for the countries of the UK to be listed in this way. Kanaye 23:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I disagree with your disagreement. This template includes sovereign states (which is one of the many definitions of the word "country"), not any other type of legal or political entity. As such, the subdivisions of the United Kingdom are not included. Legally, the subunits of the UK are not "countries" any more than the states of Germany, or the autonomous communities of Spain. It is only because of the former independent nature of the majority of the entities in the UK (and the fact that the entities are often called "constituent countries" in the UK) that this issue even comes up. As with the states of Germany and the autonomous communities of Spain, none of the entities which make up the United Kingdom are subjects of international law, and therefore none are countries (independent states) as this template uses the term "country". Lexicon(talk) 19:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Pseudo-legalistic garbage. The template is called "Countries of Europe", not sovereign states Europe. If you wanna get England, Wales, Scotland etc to cease being called countries in the English language, that's something you'll have to deal with personally. But they are called countries. Few things in this world are as intrinsically absurd as attempting to argue that words have one meaning in contradiction of actual usage. This pointless, clumsily named template is just aching for revert wars on it. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:37, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

"the word 'country' is obviously meant here"? By whom? By the people inserting England, Scotland, etc, or by those reverting it? By the common person? This is all nonsense. The title is clumsy and invites revert-wars. "Sovereign countries", by the very fact the adjective "sovereign" is placed in front of it, is only one kind of "country". All the template says is "country", so the content of the template will and ought to remain a battleground. Rename the template "Sovereign States of Europe" and the problem is solved. BTW, never heard the term Constituent countries until I went on wiki. It's very much a wiki-ism. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:51, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Macedonia

Someone just moved "Republic of Macedonia" to "FYR of Macedonia" and placed it in the Fs instead of the Ms. That got me thinking—it's POV for us to put the "Republic" in front of Macedonia in this template. I know there's tons and tons of conflict over the name, however, if no other country has its style included in the template, then it is inappropriate to put Macedonia's in. I have not changed it myself, as I would like to hear from others (preferably non-Greek and non-Macedonian editors so as to avoid emotion-based arguments) before doing so. Lexicon(talk) 15:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry that's my fault, i know i should have asked as an established editor/user. I think that we should make all the names as known, eg. FYR Macedonia, like that. I think it'd look good too. Once again sorry, any problems contact me on my talk page Celticfan383 18:03, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

For the record, information elsewhere in Wikipedia suggests that the European Union uses the "FYR" moniker as well; cf EU-related articles/templates. "Republic of Macedonia" seems fine to me, though. Regards, David Kernow(talk) 15:10, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

UN, EU, it doesn't matter--it's not its actual name. Anyway, so why do you support "Republic of Macedonia" but not, I assume, the same types of names for every other country? Lexicon(talk) 15:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Not so much support, as – knowing no better – simply adopting the name I've found in use, presumably due to this naming dispute. "Republic of Macedonia" to "Macedonia" as (say) "Republic of Austria" to "Austria" works just as well for me! Yours, David(talk) 20:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

In a template called "Countries of Europe", the name is hardly ambiguous. As there is only one country called Macedonia, the other is a region of Greece. I support using the disambiguator where necessary, but this doesn't appear to be one of them. - Francis Tyers· 00:07, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I do think that it should be FYR Macedonia and all other examples used to show people what the countries are really called. If someone is looking for Spain, they'd find that the Kingdom of Spain is it's actual name. And I think that if we were going to use full names we should have Macedonia as FYR Macedonia because that is how many people, including myself, have grown up to know it. If you look at the past Eurovision Song Contest articles, including 2007, you would see that Macdonia is always refered to in the competition as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. So that is how i think Macedonia should be labeled Celticfan383 06:57, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

But that isn't the name of the country, and we aren't using full names. We're using the conventional short form of the name, which in this case should be 'Macedonia'. - Francis Tyers· 10:45, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Malta

Greece

I should think that it does not take much education to know that Greece does not have any territories outside Europe. Evidently, whoever listed Greece as such a country did not bother to check any recent maps. In any case, could someone, please, remove the superscript '1' from Greece. Thank you. 77.49.7.74 10:58, 30 July 2007 (UTC)